


Eternity in a Pickle Jar

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: Collected: The Carmella Continuities [1]
Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Heaven & Hell, M/M, Moral Dilemmas, Past Sexual Abuse, Sexual Content, Slow Build, a less than divine comedy, reckless use of friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2018-11-21 07:36:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 115,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11352837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: Edgar Vargas is always afraid of the wrong things. Philosophical madmen and thieves with crooked teeth, knives and heights and the white arc of lightning, death and dying - none of it moves him. After all of that, what could possibly be left?They say everyone dies, and they say everyone gets a second chance. So do you still get that second chance after you die? In the grand scales of cosmic justice, after all the double-parkers and the telephone insurance salesmen, there must be a point where the thread unravels.Maybe it's not too late to be the person you want to be.





	1. Accept our Condolences

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Eternity in a Pickle Jar](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/303534) by Desdemonakakalose. 



> EIPJ is a fic I think of with equal fondness and chagrin. It was my first real ambitious work of fanfic, and I made a lot of mistakes. Over the years I thought about how to bring it over to AO3, and ultimately it seems to me that the best way to do it is to remake it, not quite from scratch but at least a "crack your own eggs" kind of recipe. 
> 
> In any case, I'd like to get a few warnings out of the way at the start here, for any new readers. Old readers, you can skip this. There will be discussions of sexual violence, parental abuse, and suicide. This isn't a dark story, but JTHM is a dark universe and there are quite a lot of rocks to turn over in the pursuit of reconciliation. Ultimately, I think everyone is better off for bringing their problems to the light.

The headlines read:

CORPSE DISCOVERED IN LOCAL LIBRARY

Sunday night, an unidentified body was recovered in the Religion section of the Leonard Nimsy Public Library. The body was shredded to piecemeal some hours earlier and reassembled apparently on the spot, lying in crucifixion position with glasses placed carefully beside him. "Johnny", as our police have taken to calling the elusive mass murderer, seems to have taken special care with this victim. The remains were scooped up and deposited in the morgue, awaiting contact from friends or family. When none were forthcoming, the police issued this description: 5'11, Hispanic male, brown hair and dark skin, goatee, dressed in what appear to have been slacks and a green shirt. It is unknown how long the corpse lay in the library, as nobody read books anymore and the first patron to venture deep enough to discover the body was a lost Chinese tourist searching for an area map. As of now, there have been no claims.  
We are left only to guess who this poor bastard was, and why "Johnny" seems to have been so interested in him. Police officials are quoted as saying: "At least he wasn’t anybody important."

 

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

"Accept our Condolences"

* * *

 

Edgar was bored. That pretty much defined his experience of the afterlife so far. Since he arrived, some uncertain eternity ago, absolutely nothing had happened. Even the clouds were static in the sky. Not to be a nitpicker, but the chair they’d given him at check in wasn’t any great shakes either. Heaven apparently couldn’t be bothered to swing for lumbar support? He’d gone from patiently folding his hands in his lap for a while, to anxiously tapping his foot, to nervously cracking his knuckles over and over again, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Was this _it_? Surely this was just the waiting room. With nothing to measure the time by, he started counting the litter on the hill, and then when he ran out of that, he counted the number of remembered door knobs in the house he’d grown up in, and then the number of times he had almost died (up until he finally had), and then how many sentences he had exchanged with the man who murdered him—

He coughed, apologetically. "Excuse me," he said, addressing the sky. The sky said nothing.

Gingerly, he lifted himself from the creaking chair. "Sorry," he said, squinting up into the crystalline blueness, "but am I doing something wrong? Did I need to get a number at the check in desk?"

There was quiet, then an uneasy shift in the still air, and then a crack like a gunshot muffled by a pillow. What stepped out from the cloud of dust wasn’t precisely a woman, but close enough to make a point. She brushed off the sharp shoulders of her sports jacket, and the plaque of her name tag which read "Elize".

"Is there a problem here, sir?"

Edgar drew back, a little embarrassed now that he was face to face with an actual representative. "Uh, hi," he said. "I’m—"

"Edgar Vargas," she said, "yes, I know. Recently deceased, homicide, age 27, no next of kin."

"That’s me," Edgar said, wishing she didn’t make it sound so much like a judgment. "I was just wondering, if you don't mind me asking—what's next?"

"Next?" the woman echoed. She blinked her narrow eyes. "There's nothing _next_. This is heaven, the eternal bliss. The good ending. The pie in the sky."  

"You mean," Edgar said, gesturing to everything, _"this_ is heaven? But it's just... dirt, and chip wrappers."

The woman put her hand on her hip. "Blue skies," she said, indicating the blue blue ceiling, "good Christian souls," she said, indicating the rest of the chairs, "Peter with a big book," she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder back in the direction from which he'd first come. "What more do you want, mister?"

"I don't know," Edgar said, frowning. "I thought there would be more—more _more,_ you know? I thought I'd be shaking hands with John the Baptist, listening to the wisdom of the sages—"

"This isn't a meet and greet with the NFL's season MVP," she said.

Edgar felt his face heat up. "That's not what I meant," he said. "I'm just—confused. Where are the angels? The saints? My family?"

Elize ticked off her fingers, "Working, busy, somewhere around here, I don't know, it's not my job to keep up with family trees."

"Is there at least something we can do about the litter?" Edgar asked her. "I'll clean it up myself if necessary. Some of this stuff is recyclable."

"You're not going to clean _anything_ ," Elize said. She jammed a finger in the direction of his empty chair. "You're going to sit down, be _quiet,_  and be grateful that you don't have to do community service for the rest of eternity."

"It's not that I'm not grateful," said Edgar, who _was_ in fact very grateful to get a little recognition for his hard work after all these years, "it's just that I don't think I can take another millennium sitting in that chair? To be honest I could barely sit through a spa appointment on my best day." 

Elize looked him up and down. "And how often did you do _that?"_

Edgar pulled off his glasses and fiddled with them, wiping off the lenses with his shirt hem. "There's nothing wrong with a man going to get a mud wrap every once in a while."

Elize reached up and seemed to be flipping through some invisible ledger. "And manicure," she said. "And pedicure."

"Okay that is," Edgar said, _"not_ what we're talking about."

Elize dropped her hand, with a brief flash of light. "No, what we're talking about is your disruptive behavior."

"Disruptive?" Edgar looked around, at the perfectly blissful field of silent bodies, each one like a strange fleshy crop. "What's there to disrupt? I don't think anyone here has blinked in a century."

"You're disrupting _me,"_   Elize snapped. She took a deep breath, and then slowly sank back into composure. "Mr. Vargas," she said, "I don't know what your problem is, but I've got a stack of paperwork bigger than a Leviathan's shit, and I don't have time to babysit some ungrateful loner loser for the rest of his afterlife. Take an orientation packet, and please, _don't_ call me again."

She shoved a paper folder into his hands, stepped back, and disappeared without so much as a puff of dust where she stood. In the silence she left behind, Edgar felt his heart sink. The quiet felt even worse now. That had been about as long of a conversation as he had in a long time, not counting-

He thought of brittle cheek bones, gloved fingers, the overwhelming scent of old blood

-the obvious.

For a while he just stood there, holding his forgotten packet to his chest, watching the unmoving clouds on the backdrop sky. It was weird, he knew it was weird, but he kind of missed the man who murdered him. True, he'd spent only minutes with… Johnny, wasn't it? Yes, and 'Nny' for short. True, and it went without saying that the whole encounter had been painful and ugly, not to mention fatal, but not _wholly_ unpleasant. Johnny had been so earnest in his manner, so clearly intelligent despite displaying every classical sign of paranoid schizophrenia and crippling misanthropy. Edgar could tell from the get-go that he felt he was doing the necessary thing, you could see it on his face. As bizarre as Nny was—and that name did seem to be the right one—he had at least been a person. He'd talked to Edgar. It felt like a lifetime since anyone had really talked to him, not just _at_ him. It was a cold, lonely world sometimes, for a certain kind of man.

And, on a shallower note, there was something captivating about Nny's gaunt features, his sharp tones—he seemed to be a man made entirely from edges, with a terrible attractiveness like the crushing gravity of a collapsing star. Edgar desperately hoped that he wasn't the only person who thought so. That would be too embarrassing. His tastes had always been what most people would call... questionable, for a start. 

He flipped open the orientation pamphlet. There were a couple forms to apply for loveseats ("Spouses Only"), a map of the region that seemed to have been penned by MC Escher in a drunken frenzy, a sheet of grandiose welcoming phrases with a stamped signature at the bottom, and a little blue credit card emblazoned with his own name ("Valid at All Infernal and Divine Establishments"). Establishments? What establishments? There was nothing but people as far as he could see. The map had some vaguely indicated areas that appeared to be employee facilities, and not much else. He flipped over the last page in the folder. Was that it? Was that _it?_

There was _one_ thing on the map, he supposed. A fence snaked around the edges of the territory as it curved paradoxically into itself, which, according to the little "You Are Here" arrow, was only a hill or so away from his current position. He looked up from the paper nervously. Despite Elize's orders, there didn't appear to be anything _actually_ forcing him to sit back down. And if no one was stopping him—if nobody was watching him—couldn't he just... go?

So, for lack of alternatives, he went.

He took the hill at a brisk pace, spotting the fence beyond as he crested the top. If heaven itself wasn't going to give him any answers, he'd just have to wring them out himself. It wasn't the first time in his life/unlife that he'd been alone in a crowded room, unfortunately. Not the first time that he couldn't explain why he just didn't seem to be like anyone else. He guessed it was too much to ask for heaven to be any different than earth. It was him, as always, who was the problem.

Edgar vaulted the fence, sticking the landing like the gymnast he had never been, and bowed to an invisible audience, delighted by how _easy_ it was to move in this new place, in this new form. Below him there were no more chairs. The fields were empty of anything, really, except for the shape of some bizarre contraption tottering across the scrubland. As Edgar drew closer, he could just make out something like a living body at the top, something in a shirt that read—

"God?"

"Shhh, you'll wake him!" ordered a strange, spindly creature peering out from underneath the chair. Edgar followed the shape of it back up and down a couple times before it clicked that the creature and the chair were the same entity. It _was_ the chair. A rush of awkward empathy hit Edgar all at once. Yeah, life _was_ like that sometimes.

"Sorry," Edgar whispered. "Is that really God?"

The cone-headed creature snorted. "The one and only," it said. This didn't sound like a ringing endorsement. "Inventor of the universe," it said, "or whatever."

"He doesn't... seem like the inventing kind," Edgar observed. "He kind of seems like the opposite."

The creature wobbled forward, narrowing its little eyes at him. "If you ask _me_ ," it said, "the only reason He ever bothered inventing the universe was to build Himself a better place to nap. That's fine with me, though," it added, "I like it better when He just sleeps. It's not like He ever wakes up to do anything important. Goes to a café once every couple hundred years, eats a burger, what's the point? And me out of a job when He's off snarfing up cold French fries."

"Uh," Edgar said. "That's... a lot to take in."

"No it's not," the chair said. "It's _boring._ Nothing ever happens. Speaking of which-" it scuttled around Edgar, examining him as it passed, "-what's a little man creature like you doing outside of his pen?"

"I got restless," Edgar told it, eyeing the hills nervously. "Went for a walk."

"Interesting," the creature said. It blinked, hard eyelids closing vertically down the middle. "I haven't seen that in a long time."

Edgar nearly dropped his orientation packet. "You've seen other people like me?"

"Sure," the creature said, disdainfully. "It's not a perfect system. Someone is always falling through the cracks. Usually they just end up in Hell and everybody forgets about them."

"That's _terrible,"_   Edgar said.

The creature shrugged, or tried to shrug—the deity at the top of the litter wobbled dangerously—and said, "That's bureaucracy. Seems to work out alright since nobody's lobbying any complaints."

"Maybe I am," Edgar offered, without much conviction.

"Are you?"

"...No," Edgar said. "Can't it be fixed?" he asked. "Could I fix it?"

"Look, human-man. There's only two endpoints in this system. If you're pious and suffering, you end up here. If you're stupid and cruel, you go to the other place. Everybody else? Gotta go somewhere."

"Do you know where they go?"

The creature shakes its head. "Every one I've ever seen just wandered off one day and never came back. Beats me what happened to them. If you wanna check it out—" it lifted one pointed limb and gestured at the far end of the unmarked nothing, beyond the rolling horizon line, "—it's none of my business."

Edgar considered this for a moment. "Thanks," he said, and meant it, "you've been a big help. By the way, my name is Edgar. Edgar Vargas." He stuck out a hand, remembering too late that the helpful creature was also part chair.

"Muffin. Pleased to meet you." Muffin tried to lift a conical foot for a proper handshake, but the snoring dead weight of a deity on its back titled dangerously to the left, and at last it gave up sadly with an, "Oh well."

With a wave, Edgar strolled off, aiming in the general direction that the creature had pointed to. Nothing seemed to change, though he walked for a good while. It was like being in a bad TV show, where the cheapo sets kept running in cycles for thirty minutes. He wasn't getting anywhere.

Just when he'd decided to head back, maybe try the other way (maybe ask Muffin exactly what he'd meant, pointing off in a useless direction), the ground gave way under him. There was a _creak,_  and then the whoosh of dark air rushing past him as he fell straight down, into an abyss barely lit by a distant red light, far below him. He grasped blindly, fingers brushing some kind of wall behind him, moving past so quickly that it scraped his fingertips raw to the quick. In fact, what he was currently sliding down at who-knows-how-many miles per hour wasn't actually dirt, as he'd first thought. It was asphalt, black with a yellow line off a few feet away. Or maybe it was a bunch of yellow dots, and he was moving too fast to see them individually.

He craned his neck to look back up at the top of the shaft. Except that there was no top. Above him was mile on mile of stretching darkness, exactly the same as below, stretching, perhaps, to infinity?

A thought occurred to him, as he zoomed down the spread of nearly featureless highway. There was nothing but the road at his back, no top, and no bottom ...What if the ground was not _below_ him, as he 'fell', but _behind_ him?

And with that, the equilibrium tilted, and suddenly he knew he was flat over the floor, being dragged along this cavernous tunnel by some inexplicable magnetism towards the red glow ahead. _Red?_ he thought. _Down? Road?_

Oh no. That was too much.

As the pull on Edgar's body lessened, and something vaguely shaped like a skyline began to fade into view within the lurid light, he reach a groaning conclusion. He was on the Highway to Hell. _Fantastic._

 

Somewhere behind (and ahead of) the irritated spirit, a great eye winked open from a feint of sleep. It looked into the Something that was Edgar Vargas, and knew him. Above (and below) his tiny tumbling form, an endless mouth began to pull into a grin.

If things _can_ begin, then this was now the beginning.

A gear clicked into motion.


	2. A Brief History of the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They say that everyone gets a second chance, they say that everyone dies. What they _don't_ say is whether you still get that second chance after you die. Maybe it's not too late to be the person you want to be.

_"And the Lord spake unto him, 'Get thee from my sight',_

_And the Adversary, Lucifer, Serpent in the Garden, Faith Crusher, Destroyer of Worlds said, 'Fine._ Be _that way'."_

 

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

"A Brief History of the Dead"

* * *

 

Edgar crashed into the pit headfirst, going about 95 miles per hour at a rough estimate, which is normally enough to turn human bones into powder on contact. What actually happened was that Edgar hit the wall of a burnt out highrise, bounced, and tumbled backwards until he hit the lip of the cavern. While this did, in fact, hurt like a son of a bitch, it takes a lot more than a little blunt force trauma to kill a dead man.

Edgar let his head _thunk_ back against a cracked stalagmite. "Well," he wheezed, "I am definitely not going back that way."

"Even if you wanted to," a cool voice informed him, "you couldn't."

Forgetting his probably exploded spine for a second, Edgar scrambled to his feet before he could shed any more dignity. And the moment he was up, he was glad he had. Standing a scant few feet away, unimpressed and looming, was a figure that Edgar could have identified in his sleep.

"Lucifer," he whispered, backing up flat against the curve of the stalagmite. Visions of the Dante-esque torments promised by his Catholic childhood flashed large and urgent behind his eyes.

"Only in the colloquial sense," the devil replied. "I would prefer you address me as Señor Diablo."

Edgar glanced over his shoulder, and then back to the dryly collected vision of evil before him. "Well that's... fair," said Edgar, who incidentally had never really believed in the Devil by _any_ name before. "Ah, Señor, what brings you… here?"

"Oh, I was in the neighborhood—or rather, in the house." Señor Diablo grinned at his own inscrutable joke, though Edgar hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about. "And you're a bit of an event yourself, Mr. Vargas. Rather a point of interest for me, in fact."

Although he was still tense, still contemplating turning tail and the devil (so to speak) take the hindmost, Edgar was curious enough to ask, "Interest? I think you may have the wrong guy."

"My good man," he said, "I am never wrong."

If Edgar's life was a tv show, it would have been canceled before the pilot even aired. He was not being humble when he concluded that the most interesting moments of his life had been the last ones—and that, entirely, was Nny's doing. Before that, what? A series of hospital rooms? A series of funerals? Late working nights, office parties spent talking to no one, early departures, silences? The only way he could imagine his life being interesting was in the cold light of schadenfreude. 

"We are very much in agreement about this, at least," the devil was saying. 

"We?"

"Not you and I," Señor Diablo replied, "but rather I and another interested party."

Edgar decided then that he didn't like the devil much. He seemed like the kind of person who loved to dangle answers over the heads of guys who didn't even know which question to ask. He seemed like the kind of person who set up every conversation so that he could get the last word in. Edgar had had bosses like him before. He'd rather have a hundred conversations with Nny than one more minute with Señor Diablo, basement murder machine and everything. Two hundred, even. It had been... nice, to be treated like an Admirable Person, even if it was an expendable one. Edgar would have been fine to go back to that. Being dead kind of took all the punch out of death threats anyway.

Was that bad? He had a feeling that was bad.

"Mr. Vargas?" Señor Diablo cut in, brow raised. "Are you ignoring me?"

"No!" Edgar snapped back into reality, properly abashed. And also suddenly nervous. "I was just… thinking about my death."

"Ah, the fatal encounter with Mr. C," Diablo noted, with a look that clearly said, _I know what you were really thinking, you little embarrassment_.

To his credit, Edgar's poker face remained intact.

The devil frowned, his skeletal face twisting down into a boney expression of disappointment. "You know, it seems like this form just doesn't scare people anymore…" he gave his long cloak a contemplative swish. "Perhaps a mime?"

Edgar seriously hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"In any case," Diablo said, "you certainly appear determined to stick your nose in things, and who would I be if I didn't encourage a little low level disobedience here and there?" He made a _shall we walk_ gesture, difficult to do with no visible arms.

"You're not going to throw me in ghost jail for trespassing?" Edgar asked, rushing after him. 

"Goodness no," Diablo said. "I don't have jurisdiction over you, even if I wanted to. No, you can have your run of the place if you like. There are only two places you are forbidden to go: Earth, which would be impossible without a body, and the McDevil's, which is undergoing repairs."

Beyond the high walls of the city, Edgar could just make out the cheerful ruined plastic sign of a McDevil's, proclaiming their intention to steal his soul. "You mean that one?" he asked.

"All of them. They all share a single dining lobby. It saves on cost."

Edgar gave the grimy yellow arches an uneasy look. He didn't like the way they seemed to frame the inscription above the entrance to the city, like a grinning toothless corporate sponsor to damnation. Then he gave the inscription a second look. "I know that one," he said, taken aback. "That's Dante. I recognize the canto."

"Oh, yes. A bit of a joke, that." Señor Diablo grinned, perhaps pleased to have a guest who could actually comprehend the word 'canto'. "The best sort of joke is the kind that's true, wouldn't you say?"

_I am the way to the City of Woe, I am the way to the Forsaken People, and I am the way to Eternal Sorrow_

"…'Only elements time could not wear were made before me; beyond time I stand. Abandon hope all ye who enter here'," read Edgar. He'd seen the passage a hundred times, but on top of a cement wall, cased in prison grade barbed wire, topped with a corporate logo... "Beyond time I stand," he murmured, again.

Diablo paused beside him, considering the old sign as well. "It's really rather complicated. You have to understand, Mr. Vargas, things were different in the beginning. I dare say even Muffin doesn't know the whole story, though who really does? Before Men and Mortal Things…"

He had a strange look on his unearthly face, wistful, perhaps. "We had such hope, in those days. I would not tell you otherwise. Oh, I did believe, I had such faith. Powerful, brilliant, all of creation at his fingertips. I..." The Devil glanced down at the dead man, whose expression was carefully neutral. "Ah, well I do believe I'm rambling. Anyways, this is your stop. Go in and get a visitor's pass."

Edgar stared hard at the building in front of them, with its brightly colored posters and tiny windows, as if it would yield the secrets of the underworld if he just put enough pressure on it. It occurred to him as he took in on the architecture (bleak and uninteresting) that this place wasn't too different from the city he used to live in, except for its guarding, endless wall. And its sunless red sky, like a rim of neon light encircling the edge of the world. He turned to ask the devil where the light came from, but found himself abruptly alone on the street, as if there had never been anyone else at all. A chip wrapper tumbled across the concrete. He shrugged, a little irritated but trying not to dwell on it. He supposed the devil had the right to disappear spookily if he wanted to.

Absently, he slipped the map out of the orientation packet and flipped it over in his hands. The little location arrow remained precisely where it had been on the page, but the topography around it had entirely changed. Now there were circles of endless streets, buildings, subway stations, and local attractions numbered without any clear reason to the numbering. 

He turned his attention back to the sky. The thing he'd at first mistaken for a moon gave him a wink.

He practically ran through the door to the guest services lobby.

Inside, the accoutrements were reminiscent of nothing so much as a crowded DMV. Edgar picked his way past a row of folding chairs that stretched the full length of the wall in all direction, occupied by bodies big and small, a couple of them snoring into their chests. From the line, a hand shot up and caught him by the elbow.

"You cuttin'?" a gnarled old man demanded, his claws digging into Edgar's shirt with a pop of broken stitching. "You a cutter, boy?"

"No sir," Edgar said, trying his best to edge away. Every time he pulled his arm, the grip closed in tighter. 

"You better not be!" the old man said, veins visibly bursting in his sagging cheeks and twisted nose. "I've been here for forty seven years! If anybody's gettin' transferred it's gonna be me!"

"Definitely," Edgar said, with a smile that was mostly a wince, "yes, you're right. It'll be you."

"Me," the old man said, releasing his grip at last. He sank back into his seat, eyes wild and unfocused. "Any minute now. I'm gettin' out of this rathole."

Edgar backed away slowly, and then when he was out of range, quickly darted to the desk. The woman behind it—narrow and otherworldly, like Elize had been, but with a tag that said 'Mary Beth'—sighed and ducked down out of sight at his approach. When she came back up, she had a stack of forms the height of his forearm.

"Here," she said, "fill the yellow ones out in triplicate, the white ones out in duplicate. The carbon copies are for your own records. There will be no amendments, changes, or alterations once the paperwork is filled in. If you cannot state your case within the space provided, no additional space will be provided for you. The word count is six hundred and sixty six words, exactly, no more and no less."

"Um," Edgar said. "I'm just here to get a visitor pass."

The strange narrow woman squinted at him. "You're not applying to transfer upstairs?"

"No, no-" although come to think of it, he didn't know how exactly he was going to get back, "-I'm just sightseeing. I was told to get a pass."

The woman slowly withdrew her stack of paperwork. Instead, she slid a single sheet of paper through the slot in the bulletproof glass. "Name, date of birth, date of death. Signature. By signing this form you agree to abide by the terms and services of Hell, LLC, for the duration of your stay."

"Right," Edgar said. "Do you have a pen?"

"Blood is traditional," Mary Beth replied, making no move to help him.

"Oh. Um. Well, when in Rome." Edgar reached over the counter with an absent, "Do you mind if I...?" and pulled the lapel pin from the woman's suit jacket. The tip was not sharp enough to prevent him from waking every single nerve in his index finger into screaming resentment. He scribbled messily across the paper with the throbbing digit, teeth gritted. Then he dotted his I's, and presented the finished work with a hopeful wince.

"Uh," Mary Beth said. "Wow. You sure did that. Hold on a second."

She picked up his form and disappeared into the hazy darkness beyond her station. She was gone for a few long minutes, in which Edgar uneasily took stock of the denizens occupying the circumference of the room. They eyed him sullenly in return. Finally Mary Beth stepped back out of the cloudy darkness with a lanyard and a tag looped through her pale hand.  

"Hell, LLC, assumes no responsibility should the deceased experience any discomfort, discorporation, decapitation, dismemberment, or desanguination at the hands of any entity, or entities, not currently under the employ of Divine or Infernal services. Please exit to the rear." 

Edgar stuffed the lanyard in his pocket, eager to be literally anywhere else. "Thanks," he said.

"My pleasure," Mary Beth said, sounding as if it had been anything but. She took her seat again, and then, pausing with her hand above the keyboard, added, "I _was_ going to give you a pen."

"Oh," Edgar said. He lifted his hand and took a look at the pricked finger, only to find the skin as brown and unmarked as it had been when he arrived. "Well I guess I saved you some ink, anyway."

Back outside in the questionable daylight, Edgar pulled his pass back out and flipped it over. It had a little picture ID, along with his name and his date of death, and an inexplicable pictogram of a fish consuming a giant squid. On the back was a string of sevens. He pocketed it again. Were there others like it in this city? Would he know them if he saw them, passed them in the street? In a system set up for only two kinds of people, there were bound to be other misfits floating around somewhere. Someone searching for another like himself, or herself… and maybe…

Edgar froze. The moon was winking at him again. On second thought, it wasn't like any moon he had ever seen. Most moons, to the extent of his astronomic knowledge, did not have irises.

Hesitantly, the dead man pointed to himself and mouthed 'me?', which made him feel utterly ridiculous a moment later, but it did seem to do the trick. The eye jiggled in a distinctly 'yes, you' kind of way, and looked meaningfully at a nearby roof top. Okay, _that_ was not an exchange he had ever prepared himself to have. Feeling a lot like he'd recently escaped from the crazy house for boys, he dutifully trudged across the street and into some sort of boutique. At the counter sat a blond woman with an eyebrow ring and a terrifying scowl, her nose buried in the kind of magazine only sold at check out counters in the worst part of town. Under the sudden fearsome power of her scrutiny, Edgar wilted.

It is important to note that in life, Edgar had been entirely a mild mannered man. If there was Superman lurking under his Clark Kent, he had yet to find it. Death had left him feeling almost liberated until now, but the flesh-peeling glare on that woman's face was enough to bring him up short.

"Dude," she snorted, actually setting down her magazine, "what the hell is with your _nose?"_

"I… don't… know?" Edgar managed, feeling vaguely like a deer must feel under the oncoming glare of a two ton truck. He pressed his hand to his nose and found the bridge exactly as he remembered it.

"I mean, it's like a fuckin' _mountain!_ " the woman shrieked, giddy with spitefulness, "Are you going to _do_ something about that? And oh my god, your shirt totally clashes with your shoes. Who the hell taught you how to dress?"

 _It does_ not _clash_. The dead man clenched his fists so tight the skin turned chalky. "Can I use your roof? Please," he managed through clenched teeth.

A row of eyes blinked at him from the display of gum on the counter, like a bed of oysters peering up at him. They all shuttered closed when the cashier reached down into them and tugged a foil wrapped strip free. 

"Sure," she said, peeling foil off the bright pink flesh, "whatever. You better hope the Eye doesn't spot your circus get-up though." She pointed lazily a door, perfectly pleased to stew in her own loathsome company.

Edgar stopped with a hand on the doorframe. It occurred to him for the first time that he was not the only person experiencing the world here. "The eye?" he said.

"Get a load of the n00b," she said, somehow managing to pronounce both the zeroes with unmistakable precision. Edgar had no idea what a n00b was, but he was now unquestionably certain of how to spell it. "Yeah, the Eye. 'S always watching us down here. Well, mostly me, but it might see you too, since you're nearby."

"Right." Edgar frowned slightly, wondering how long it would _actually_ take to figure out this whole afterlife business. "I'll just show myself up, then."

"Later, effete," the cashier called after him, returning to her magazine.

The man slunk past a rack of near-see-through blouses with his head down, trying not to wish too fervently that someone with fewer morals than he would come along and stick a blunt object through her head. Maybe multiple blunt objects. As he climbed the seemingly endless staircase, he considered darkly that she probably didn't even know what that meant. Just that it was rude and sounded ungodly pretentious.

Definition: weak, worthless, feminine. Origin came from the Latin word for 'worn out from bearing children'. He'd taken part in a few brainbowl sessions during his time on Earth. His team took home second place last semester.

Edgar had one Very Bad Feeling that this brief incident was only the start of things. The first of many, as it were. God, what if everyone here was like her? He'd barely made it out of high school in one piece, he wasn't sure he could make it through again.

He shook his head and focused on why he was here in the first place. Edgar wrapped his well-manicured hand (note to self: never let _anyone_ down here find out about that) around the doorknob and pushed. The hinges creaked like a gunshot, but the door swung open easily. Stumbling, he stepped out into the lurid city light.

And promptly fell back on his ass with an undignified shriek.

"Hello to you too," a deep voice sulked.

Edgar did a double take. That pathetic voice with the mild English accent was coming from the looming, _massive eye_ floating about a foot from his nose. He guessed that, given the direction his life was going lately, he should give up being surprised anymore. What was he expecting, an eyeball _not_ to talk?

"S-orry," the spirit stuttered, right hand clutching at where he assumed his heart would be. "You--startled me."

"You didn't have to scream," it replied, staring owlishly. Possibly that was the only way it could stare.

"My bad, honestly."

"I don't know what it is with you people," it went on. "You're always screaming." 

"Uh, well," Edgar said, swallowing hard, "that might be a subjective experience, given that most human beings aren't really used to… talking eyeballs."

"Eyes, mouth, it's all part of the face. I don't see why it should matter. Honestly… _Aren't_ you going to ask why I called you up here?"

Edgar tried to stop wondering if the eye was _gooey_. It seemed borderline racist at this point. "Why did you call me up here?" he asked, dutifully.

"Because I wanted to meet you, of course." It floated a little higher. "I could desperately use a little conversation from somebody on the outside. You have no idea what it's like floating here day and night. Everyone's always staring at me. It's awful."  

"I can imagine." Despite everything, Edgar felt the edge of his lip twitch. "So what _do_ you do, if not pass constant judgment on people's clothing?"

The eye blinked. "I don't really know. I _think_ Senior Diablo uses me to keep an eye on the masses. He won me from the oracle of Delphi in a poker game. I'm an All Seeing Eye, you know."

"I didn't."

Edgar got the impression it would be preening if it had the means. "I can see anything," it said, "anywhere. Future, past, present, heaven, earth. My potential is being _squandered_ here, I don't have to tell you."

Edgar gave it a new, doubly interested look over. "So… hypothetically… you could look back at where I lived?"

"Hypothetically, yeah. Pretty nifty, huh?" if disembodied eyes could smile, it would have been beaming.

"Yeah, nifty. Um… Mr. Eyeball?"

"You can call me Al."

"Alright, Al. How would you feel about putting that range to the test? I've got a couple places back on Earth I'd like to check in on."

The iris went pale with static snow, like an old television set. "Just pick something interesting," it said, "for the love of God."

 

And that was the beginning of Edgar's Afterlife. In the days of restless exploration and aimless experimentation that followed, the streets of the underworld became as familiar to him as the hallways he'd walked daily in life. Edgar mapped the ever shifting streets, until his maps had more eraser marks than lines. Edgar sat in cafes, alone, and toured the shops, alone. Edgar watched the people come and go, talking of Michelangelo. And every so often, Edgar dropped back by to focus his borrowed vision on two locations: one dull looking high school full of fairly unremarkable teenagers, and a broken down shack of a house in the same city. Number 777, home of one homicidal maniac, Number of the Moose.

That's the end of the beginning. It would be a waste of time to recount those days further, curious and formative though they were, for one very good reason:

By the time that all was said and done, Edgar would hardly be able to remember an afterlife before the Meeting.

 

 

On the curve of organic screen, Edgar watched the image of a sky fade to black, the stars sucked into an abyss and dissolved into nothingness. Although he had no proof, he suspected that it was not the _universe_ that was disappearing, but rather the _Earth_ dissolving out of the universe.

Nonetheless, darkness encroached across the planet, converging from all directions on a single location: one unassuming shack of a house, number 777 on an otherwise uninteresting street.

"Oh, Johnny," Edgar sighed, "I do believe it's time for a taste of your own medicine."

When the last of reality finally faded out, sucking the Moose and its concluding victim into nothingness, he shifted his feet uncomfortably. There was a strange emptiness in his chest, he realized, as if the dissolution of his former home had dissolved something within himself as well. Edgar stepped back from the floating eye and tapped it once, grimacing at the jelly-like feeling. He still hadn't gotten used to that, even after these past months.

"Al, I think that's enough," he said aloud.

The eye shook itself out of its long trance. Its iris blinked back to life. "What was that?" it said. "I thought you told me he couldn't die?"

"No, I told you that _he_ told me that he couldn't die. And after everything I've seen, I assumed it was true. It certainly made sense, until that..." Edgar rubbed his jaw, thinking over the evidence. Johnny's life had been most of his entertainment the last few months. "Did you see that suicide contraption he rigged up? Do you think maybe he could only be killed by an unmanned weapon?"

"I don't know, it's all moot now." Al added moodily, "He'll be here pretty soon." It didn't exactly seem jazzed. He guessed it had seen plenty enough to know that where Johnny C went, chaos was soon to follow.

"Well," Edgar said, "on the bright side, least people will stop looking at you for a while."

"There is that," Al hummed. "How about you? You going to meet him at the gate?"

Edgar laughed. "Oh, god no. Johnny probably doesn't even remember me, and I really don't want to introduce myself again after what happened _last_ time."

"I thought you liked the guy," Al said, narrowing down to a suspicious slit in the air.

"Some people you have to like from a distance," Edgar replied. "Preferably from the other side of reality."

It was a shame too, Edgar thought as he climbed the stair back to the bottom of the TakeYourBucks; because Johnny had been such an interesting puzzle. But a deep-seated fear of awkwardness was stronger than curiosity, as Edgar's mother had always said. He would do without, and perhaps be annoyed with himself later.

So instead, he did what he always did: he hid.

In Hell, there was no clear delineation of day and night. It would probably drive a living human insane, living like this; the days lasted more hours than there were numbers on a clock, or often less, and the nights lasted as long as they pleased. People here, himself included now, slept whenever sleep seemed appropriate. They didn't need the rest any more than they needed the food they endlessly consumed, but that was Hell for you. Unnecessary, peculiar, and stubborn. In a way, he was growing... if not fond of it, at least familiar.

He waited Johnny out by sleeping for a while. As he'd been in the underworld during the ghoulish, unpredictable period that passed for day, he had simply tucked himself away in the dark corner of a movie theater to catch up on some unnecessary sleep. Now, awake again and the sky still a bright persistent white, and with a good night of sleep under his belt, Edgar strolled down the streets of Hell heading nowhere in particular.

Maybe next time he would buck up the courage to say hi. After all, the next time would probably be for good, although who knew? Who knew anything, really? The whole situation was out of his league; he had ought to file it away for future pondering and let things happen as they happen. Too bad that had never been his strong point.

The dead man strode down the street, turning theories over in his head like pancakes on a griddle. He was so absorbed in trying to change mental channels that half way off a curb, he bumped shoulders with one of Hell's less tolerable denizens.

She clutched her plethora of shopping bags to her chest, although a couple of them had scattered free at her feet, and let out a screech more barn owl than human. "Watch where you're going you hopped up little fag!"

Edgar took a steadying breath and picked up the nearest tumbled bag. If he had a nickel every time someone on the street here called him a fag, he wouldn't need a divine credit card in the first place. It wasn't as if it had never happened to him when he was alive, but never like _this_. People down here had such a hair trigger temper. Sometimes he felt like Johnny, just trying to get to the god damn seven-eleven without a fuss. 

"Ma'am," he replied, picking up the last tissue-stuffed _Bathory's Secret_ bag, "with all due respect, I am not a fag."

"Don't touch my things," she snapped, snatching the bag back by its fraying handles, "fuckin' grabby ass little queermo. You skinny little fuck, I know your type."

Grimacing, Edgar considered that, all other things equal, he was indeed quite skinny. Now that he thought about it, practically every man down here was some variation of obese, possibly a result of the dead not needing to eat and yet still eating. Truth be told, he'd always worn baggy clothes in life—something he'd been forced to grow out of while in Hell—so he supposed that might account for why people hadn't remarked on it before.

"You know, being skinny doesn't actually make you gay," he said. Under his breath he added, "It's apparently a common mistake."

"Touch my stuff again and I'll have my boyfriend beat your ass," she said, marching away with a trail of coins plunking to the street in her wake.

"You're welcome," Edgar called, shoving his hands in his (not very accommodating) pockets.

Hell. It was still better than being stuck in a chair in the dirt, he supposed, but not by that much.

"At least," he muttered to the street, "I haven't met anyone I used to know. On the other hand, I didn't know many people to begin with." He'd always kept more or less to himself, and like he'd told Nny, he didn't really have friends or family. Not anymore, for certain.

Edgar trailed off as a metallic _bang_  exploded the block ahead. There was a wave of incomprehensible shouting and jumbled swearing, just on the other side of the Macy's outlet. Slowly, and then more urgently as the panic grew louder, Edgar stepped back into the alley way and hid. He felt a pang of sympathy for the poor joker they were chasing. The people of Hell could go off at the drop of a hat. He hated to imagine being on the wrong end of _that._

The figure that came pell-mell streaking round the corner stumbled on a chunk of uneven sidewalk, caught himself with a clink of heavy shopping bags, and fell forward into a run like the only thing keeping him on his feet was the sheer momentum of the chase. Somewhere in the moment between that fall and that unstoppable forward motion, Edgar must have made a decision. He couldn't remember making it, but he must have. Why else would he have reached out?

Just as the figure same level with his hiding place, Edgar grabbed it by the neck of its shirt, yanking them both back into the darkness and safely out of sight. The mob's pounding momentum rushed by, unbroken, and faded down the road into silence.

Edgar ran through a quick appraisal of the boy's appearance—disheveled, inelegant—and tried to get a sense of what fish he'd caught in his impromptu net. Baggy black pants tucked into buckled boots; striped shirt, spiky black hair, a spattering of acne and some freckles…he'd probably been around college age when he died. Fairly normal as far as teenagers went, Edgar supposed, though there was something eerily familiar about him. Something almost like deja vu...

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the boy demanded, unnecessarily smoothing his unruly hair. It seemed like a nervous gesture, an uncertain and ineffectual preening. Edgar smiled at it.

"Saving you from a mob, probably," Edgar answered.

"I had it under control! They were right where I wanted them. I was gonna… do… something," the young man ended lamely.

"I'm sure you were. Nonetheless, it seemed like I ought to give you a hand."

The fugitive gave him a scathing once-over, the smudged khol around his eyes giving him a beady hawkish look. "I don't buy it," he said. "Nobody's that nice down here. What's your game?" and he added as an afterthought: "Fuck you."

"I'm not really from around here," Edgar answered, drawing his guest pass out of his pocket for a flash. "Care to fill me in on why half of Hell was chasing you?"

The fugitive kept a wary glare on Edgar as he seated himself on a discarded cardboard box. He looked like he was weighing his options. There was something about him that unexpectedly delighted Edgar _—hawkish,_ he thought again, like a puffed up bird.

"I snatched some booze," the fugitive said at last, leaning back nonchalantly, clearly expecting his audience to be impressed.

Instead, his audience raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?"

"No! …yes… What do _you_ care?"

He lifted a hand to point aggressively at Edgar's chest, and Edgar's mind abruptly jumped tracks. He had a tendency to drift off into tangents at inopportune times, which was a curse he'd dealt with before everywhere from meetings to Sunday services. Now was such a time, he realized, as he noticed that his grudging companion wore _fishnet gloves_. Actual fishnet gloves. Now, Edgar had always tried very hard not to profile people by their physical appearance, and certainly not make any character assumptions based on it. He'd known enough spirited Goths and depressed cheerleaders to realize clothing represented literally nothing. But to be quite frank, Hell must have been getting to him because those gloves set off his gay-dar like a cigarette in a middle school ladies room.

Should he even  _have_ a gay-dar? He wasn't sure where he would have picked one up. He was the only gay person he had known.

"Just curious," he murmured, still trying to shut off the alarm bells. "Couldn't you have just bought it? People down here do love to flash their money."

"Well maybe I don't!" the kid spit. "Maybe I'm actually disgusted by these assholes, you ever think of that, Mr. Tourist? You ever think that maybe I don't belong with these idiots? I'd sooner _gut_ one of those self-centered fucks-"

The deja vu finally clicked, right then, with one final detail that blotted out everything else. The rest of the kid's monologue faded into a faint buzzing noise as Edgar realized who he looked like. The dead boy looked like a copy of Nny spit out of a Xerox with low toner.

Edgar took a step back. This was insane. Of all the people in Hell whose business he could have decided to stick his nose in—but how was that possible? Of course there was always the chance of a coincidence, but Edgar had never believed in those. He wondered if this junior murder bug was like Johnny in terms of sanity too. Should he say something? Should he run? 

"-And that one chick, what is up with the _lint?_ She says she's self aware, but she can't even hold back a fucking insult!" the kid shouted, addressing no one in particular now. 

"She is pretty terrible," Edgar murmured, "no argument there."

"I'm sick to death of this place," the kid snarled. He kicked at his shopping bag, glass clunking against glass. "Shove a red hot poker up my ass already and be done with it. It's not like things can get any worse."

"How long have you been here?" Edgar asked, tilting his head.

"I dunno," the kid said. "A day? Two?"

"That's a little dramatic for one day, don't you think?"

He glared up at Edgar. It struck Edgar that the smears around his eyes almost looked as if he'd been wiping away tears, but it was hard to be sure. Now, at least, there was nothing left in him but sullen rage. "I'll show you fucking dramatic," he said. "I'll show this whole fucking city _dramatic_."

Edgar sat down on the ground beside him. "Eternity can be frightening," he murmured. " _I_ find it frightening." 

"I'm not scared of shit," the kid said.

"So what are you, then?"

He scowled at the shopping bag under his heel. "I'm tired," he said. "I am really Christ-fucking tired, man."

"I recommend a nap," Edgar said. He gave the ground a wry grin. "Things always seem better in the morning."

"You haven't seen some of the stuff I've woken up to," the kid muttered.

The city was quiet. Most of everything, Edgar missed the birds. In this place, there were no birds at all.

"I'm Edgar," Edgar said, offering an open palm. The kid stared at it for a long moment, like he was parsing it for hidden blades.

"Uh… yeah…" he said. "I'm Jimmy. But you seem okay, I guess, so you can call me M—"

Jimmy cut himself off with a look of badly concealed chagrin. The deja vu flashed again, insistent. When Jimmy still made no move to take his hand, he let it drop without a fuss, only a little disappointed.

"Huh." Jimmy thumped the box once, like he'd made some kind of decision. "Well, I gotta go. Booze to drink and so on, you know." As he stood, he gave Edgar a once over. Apparently, he saw something that amused him. He swung his bag up onto his shoulder and trotted off, smirking. "Smell ya later, faggot!" he called, pausing for a moment to glanceover his shoulder. The rattle and clink of glass bottles followed him long after he'd turned the corner from sight.

Edgar stared after him, unsure quite what had happened there at all. After a long moment he just sighed. "You owe me a nickel," he said, to no one.

 


	3. A Voice From the Taco There Came

  
"Love can change a person the way that a parent can change a baby: awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess."

-Lemony Snicket

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

A Voice From the Taco There Came

* * *

 

There was, in fact, a stairway to Heaven. Or that was what the orientation map labeled it as, anyways. It was located in a service station that moved constantly with the sideways growth of town, never in the same place twice. On his way out of the staircase, Edgar flashed his visitor’s pass at the bored attendant just as he did every time, only kind of winded by the long climb. He’d considered a few times taking the highway down again, but he was a little afraid of attracting the Devil’s attention a second time. Not to mention, the part where he hit a wall going nearly a hundred miles per hour and then had to listen to his cracked bones reknitting. The stairs were a safer option. And anyways, once you got up high enough the sides fell off and you had a lovely view of endless, blinking lights.

Edgar ducked out the door with a dull _ping_ , air conditioning giving way immediately to the hot breath of Hell. He’d lived down south for a while as a child, and each time the sensation filled him with a nostalgia that never seemed to fade. For the first moment of bursting heat, it was as if a core of ice in his bones was going liquid and soft. Of course in a couple minutes the heat would just be annoying, but for that first second, there was something sublime about it.

He wasn’t headed anywhere in particular. He hadn’t been for a while now. Most days he just wandered the streets, observing things, listening to snatches of conversation, trying to imagine his position from a bird’s eye view. He felt as if he had been searching all his life, and it felt natural to spend his afterlife searching too. There were no other guest passes in the city, he was almost certain now. If he hadn’t spotted one by now then he seriously doubted he ever would. Maybe there were people like him in other cities, in other Hells, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how to get anywhere else. So now he just searched. Period. An action without a solution.

He was passing under the shadow of an enormous Mexican restaurant, the roof of which was a fully involved plaster and plastic replica of a taco, when he came to an abrupt stop underneath a leaf of faded lettuce. What was that noise? He could hear something murmuring, like a voice, but the street was empty and more than that, the sound was coming from somewhere… above him…

Edgar took a step back, craned his neck up to peer past a lump of colossal sour cream, and had just enough time to pick out something blueish and oblong teetering on the edge of the roof before that blueish oblong thing cracked him square between the eyes.

“Judas fucking _Christ_ ,” he shouted, clutching his head with both hands. The bottle rolled unharmed down the sidewalk, having been sufficiently cushioned by his forehead on its way down.

“ _Nicccce_ ,” the voice hissed, hovering somewhere above him. That was all he needed right now, a concussion and a conversation on top of it. God almighty Edgar hoped that was not some kind of tex-mex themed demon haunting the roof above him. That might sound dumb, but with everything else he’d seen so far it might as _well_ happen. His threshold for disbelief was literally ground down to nothing.

“Who’s up there?” Edgar said, squinting up past his hands at the sky.

“ _The Darkness_ ,” the voice intoned. Or tried to intone. Honestly it was more of a drunken attempt at a spooky voice. That was definitely a human, and not a wholly collected one either. Through the haze of his watering eyes, Edgar through he could make out the spiked edges of human hair. Did that voice sound familiar? Something about that voice—

“Jimmy?” he called up, “From the alley? Is that you?”

There was a movement in the shadows between two giant slices of tomato, and then a pale speckled face peered back down at him. It really was a small underworld after all.

“He-eey faggot,” Jimmy said, “fancy meetin’ you here.”

Insult to injury, Edgar thought irritably. “Please don’t call me that,” he said. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know you’re a _fag_ ,” Jimmy replied in a cheerful drunken slur.

“Do you know you’re the twenty-sixth person to call me that?” Edgar said, pain finally receding enough that he could thumb the water from his eyes and drop his hand. “What is it with people around here? I’m just minding my own business here and it’s like this whole city is reading ‘please make crude speculations about my sexuality’ floating above my head.”

“Just callin’ em like I see ‘em,” Jimmy replied, rolling over onto his back. His head hung off the edge now, strands of his crunchy mussed hair drifting with him. He looked terrible. He looked like he had literally crawled out of his grave to get here. The smudging around his eyes was even worse than before.

“You do realize it’s extremely unsafe to be up there in your condition, don’t you?”

“Fuck you,” Jimmy said. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, you’re inebriated. There’s a difference. Get away from the edge before you tip over it.”

“I said I’m fuckin’ _fine_ ,” Jimmy insisted, and indeed, wriggled even further forward. “I’m dead, what’s it matter now?”

“Get back from there,” Edgar said, planting his hand on his hips. “You’re going to fall.”

Jimmy rolled himself onto his side, planting an elbow in the edge of the plaster and pushing himself up. “The hell I am,” he said. “Check it, bitches, one hand. I bet I could do it no hands too—”

The plaster cracked, and down Jimmy went. It seemed to Edgar like a series of still frames, each as vivid as it was fleeting: the plaster falling through the air in chunks, Jimmy’s arm swinging out in the vain search for a handhold, Jimmy tumbling over himself, his grey eyes pulled wide with real sudden fear. Edgar lurched forward on instinct, not sure what he was doing or even what he _could_ do. In reviewing the incident, as he would do countless times afterwards, he decided that he must have hit Jimmy at just the split second needed to keep his torso in the air. What he knew at that moment was the thump of a body hitting his shoulder, and the sick crack of bone against concrete. The two of them spilled down across the sidewalk in an ugly tangle of limbs.

“Oh god, oh god,” Edgar was muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I missed, god, fuck, are you okay?”

Jimmy made a terrible sound deep in his throat. “Oh,” he panted, “fuck that’s nasty.”

Edgar looked down over his shoulder to where his hand was hovering over his crumpled calf, the bone poking pink and white through his snagged jeans. Edgar went dizzy with nausea for a hot second there.

He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, “it’s okay. We just need to—”

Jimmy hissed as Edgar pulled away and reached down, to where the ruined limb was soaking the black jeans with blacker blood. He grabbed Jimmy's ankle—a high keening whine—and his knee, and said, “This is going to hurt, okay, just hold on, stick with me.”

And he pulled until the bone grudgingly slipped back into place, with the help of a little pushing and wiggling and, yes, screaming. When everything was back where it was supposed to go, Edgar sat back, sweating, and held both of Jimmy’s hands so tightly that both their fingers turned white. He did that until Jimmy finally collapsed, breathing hard, into his shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said again, not even sure that Jimmy was listening, “I don’t, um, have any medical training. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Jimmy breathed.

Edgar looked down at their hands. Jimmy still hadn’t let him go.

“At least I’m fucking sober now,” Jimmy grunted, staring at the blue liquor bottle as it continued in the face of all gravitational laws to roll through the next intersection.

“Do you think you can walk?” Edgar said.

Jimmy gave him a look that could peel flesh from the bone. Edgar winced. “Stupid question,” he agreed.

Jimmy looked away. The hand around Edgars abruptly dropped. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ve got it. You can go.”

Edgar stared at him. “You’re just going to sit here in the street until it heals?”

“Maybe I’ll crawl into traffic and get my head smashed in too,” Jimmy said. “It’s none of your _god_ damn business.”

Edgar rolled his eyes, because Jimmy wouldn’t be able to see it anyway. “Come on,” he said, “let’s be reasonable for a second.”

Jimmy let out a bark of laughter and fell forward into himself all at once, the laughter coming quicker and higher until it devolved into uncontrolled giggling. “ _Let’s be reasonable_ ,” he mocked, between labored breaths.

“Alright,” Edgar said, “that’s enough of that. Dead people may heal quickly but even at that rate you’re gonna be incapacitated for at least a day, maybe more. You can’t just sit here waiting for it to knit itself up.”

“What do you care?” Jimmy laughed, glancing over his shoulder with his watery grey eyes.

Edgar found himself at a loss for words, watching the light catching in Jimmy’s wet eyelashes. What did he care? It was a question with no appropriate answer, not a why or a how but a _what_. Several replies died on his tongue, each more confused and useless than the last. He just _did_ , because that’s what you were supposed to do.

“Where do you live?” he asked, instead of trying to answer.

“Fuck you,” Jimmy said, all his momentary good humor abruptly dying, “and _fuck_ your little good Samaritan act. I don’t need your help.”

“Kinda seems like you do?”

Jimmy swore, slamming a fist into the pavement. Futilely, he attempted to pull himself up under his own power. There was nothing but Edgar to push against, though, and so his scrabbling at the dirt did nothing but dirty his nails and send a weird sad ping through Edgar’s chest.

“Hey,” he said, “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

Jimmy bared his teeth, some of them jagged and bent. “You don’t know when to fuckin’ quit do you?” he said. “What do you _want_?”

Carefully, moving slowly enough not to startle anyone, Edgar reached out and took Jimmy’s hand, pulling it away from the dusty concrete. This is the hand you held a moment ago, he was trying to say. This is still the same hand. "I don't want anything," he answered quietly. "Except maybe to get you home in one piece. Now, seriously. Where do you live?"

Jimmy looked pointedly at anything besides Edgar. Grudgingly, he pulled his wrist free and draped it over Edgar's shoulder, still obstinately silent. When Edgar had pulled them both to their feet, he finally answered, "That way," and pointed. Edgar was too relieved to ask the other question, which was: where exactly do damned people live?

They staggered away together, leaving the god forsaken taco and the stained concrete behind them. After the first block or so, relief started to give way to dawning embarrassment. Edgar could feel his ears burning, although thank god his skin was dark enough that you’d never know it from looking. The last time Edgar had been this close to anybody, he’d been slumped over a stranger at the bar ten drinks deep into a post-funeral haze. That was, not to put to fine a point on it, a _pretty_ different experience than this one. Particularly the part where he could feel Jimmy’s ribs shifting under his hand.

The place Jimmy silently directed them towards was a complex of cement block buildings disappearing far into the horizon, spotted with such small and undecorated windows that at first Edgar mistook it for warehouses. But no, Jimmy told him, those were the apartments. He’d gotten his key when he first arrived, but he hadn’t spent any longer there than it took to take one look around, turn heel, and walk back out the door.

“Are they that bad?” Edgar asked.

“Didn’t like that tiny window,” Jimmy said. “Felt like a prison cell. Wasn’t sure I could get back out again.”

It took another ten minutes to reach his building, by which time they were both panting for breath and Jimmy's remaining leg was about to give out. Edgar pushed them through the door and, carefully as he could manage at this point, deposited Jimmy on the nearest flat surface. He ran a hand over his face, relieved, tried to lean back against the wall to catch his breath, and missed it by a mile. He hit the carpet with a thump.

For a while they both just sat there, where they had landed. That had been, Edgar reflected, both more physical exercise and more sustained physical contact than he had had in years. Not sure which one was more embarrassing.

"Alright," Jimmy said, after a while, "I'm safe from the big bad sidewalk, you can go home now."

Edgar looked up for the first time since he’d arrived. Jimmy had slung his leg up on the coffee table and sunk back into the ratty plaid couch, glaring at his guest. Behind him, the walls of the apartment were the cold gray of cement poured right into the mold and left behind. No wonder he’d called it a prison. It certainly wasn’t a home.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay? How’s your leg?”

Jimmy let out an exasperated sigh, head thumping back against the arm rest. “I’m _fine_ , for the love of fuck,” he said. “Don’t think this nice guy act is gonna get you into my pants.”

“What? Who said anything about—“ Edgar broke off, thinking about the long walk, his hand against Jimmy’s ribs. “That’s not what I was doing!”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not even—” Edgar drew back uneasily, closer to the wall. “I’m not into guys, alright?”

“With those jeans and that shirt? Sure you are.” Jimmy flipped a hand, gesturing at nothing in particular. “You’re from the same city as me, right? Everyone here is. Why would you be dressed like that if you weren’t gay?”

Edgar let out a breath, relieved and somehow almost disappointed that the answer was that arbitrary. “I didn’t even pick these out,” he said. “I was browsing in a clothing store and this guy who worked there made me buy them. No, look, I know how that sounds, but I’m being serious, I left my stuff in the changing room to find a jacket and he took all of it—he said he burned it, I don’t know, he was trying to make commission—”

“Sure,” Jimmy said.

“You wait until you’ve been here a week,” Edgar said, “then see how skeptical you are about anything I tell you.”

Jimmy made a face like he was humoring Edgar, but only just. “Still doesn’t explain why you kept them.”

Self-consciously, Edgar picked at the hem of his (admittedly pretty tight) shirt. He did have unlimited heavenly funds. He could have just bought something else. Truth be told, the experience had traumatized him a tiny little bit. Just looking at a Macy’s storefront gave him anxiety. And on the other, weirdly sentimental hand, the clerk had specifically gone to the trouble of picking clothes that fit Edgar and—according to him—were as flattering as anything could be on a body like that. Edgar hadn’t really owned flattering clothes before. He’d just bought whatever was cheap.

“Clothes or no clothes,” Jimmy carried on, “nobody does anything unless there’s something in it for them, heaven or not.”

“Yes they do!” Edgar said, taking that very personally. He'd always tried to help anyone he could afford to, because it was the right thing to do, not for any sort of reward. His conscience would never allow him to ignore someone in need.

Well, with the possible exception of street performers.

"Man, if you really think so, you've gotta be the most naïve person I've ever… How _old_ are you?”

Edgar thought about it for a second. “Well, it was my birthday when I died, so… twenty-seven, probably.”

“On your birthday?” Jimmy said, eyebrows going up. “No shit.”

Edgar gave him a wry smile and flipped out his visitor’s pass, displaying the DOD. “April first,” he said.

Jimmy made grabby hands at him and, obliging, Edgar tossed it over. “Unbelievable,” Jimmy said, clearly delighted as he flipped the pass over in his hands. “You are literally the unluckiest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”

“That’s me,” Edgar sighed. “But honestly, I really don’t want anything from you.”

Jimmy scratched at the plastic with one of his chipped black nails. “Look,” he said, “I’ve learned to recognize the signs. Everybody wants something.”

For a long moment, Edgar was silent. What signs was he giving off? He didn't think there was anything he wanted, except maybe a conversation that didn’t devolve into someone screaming about lint. He had a chair, a credit card, clothes that would do just fine if people would only stop commenting on them, and an unopened two-pack of poptarts waiting for him back in Heaven.

Hmm.

“Okay,” he said, “cards on the table. Do you have a toaster?”

“…Maybe? You want my toaster?”

Edgar grinned. When Jimmy screwed his face up in confusion like that, it was remarkably cute, acne and all. "No, I just want to borrow it. See, I found this box of poptarts on the street, and normally I'd just leave it, but they were cherry-mushroom and I thought to myself, 'I may never see that flavor ever again!' so I grabbed it." Edgar shrugged, still smiling. "The thing is, I don't have a toaster."

There was a long silence, in which Jimmy stared at Edgar.

“I like poptarts,” he said, by way of explanation.

“And I thought I was the weird one,” Jimmy muttered. “Yeah, whatever, you can take a look around if you want. No skin off my teeth. I’m not gonna be getting up for a while.” He tapped his busted leg for emphasis.

“Great!” Edgar said, climbing to his feet. “I won’t mess with anything.”

Even though by Jimmy’s own account, the place had never been used, poking around in the shelves and cupboards gave Edgar a weird edgy feeling. He hadn’t forgotten that there was something distinctly Nny-ish packaged up inside the thief on the couch, and what aspect that would turn out to be was entirely beyond Edgar. Rummaging through closets here made him feel like Bluebeard’s new wife, just one lock click away from discovering the bodies. It made the back of his neck tingle.

“Ah!” he said, lifting a box from the high corner of the hall closet. “Here we go.”

“You found one?” Jimmy called from the living room.

“I found one!” Edgar said. “Brand new! A little dusty.”

He carried it into the kitchen and carefully wiped away the dust before popping the tape, mindful that he was in someone else’s kitchen. He’d gotten as far as plugging it into the wall before it occurred to him that the poptarts were still under his chair, back upstairs. Hmm.

He grabbed the edge of the kitchenette wall and swung around the corner. “Hey,” he said, “would you mind if I came back for this tomorrow? I could pick you up some supplies, if you want.”

A series of emotions flitted over Jimmy’s face, too quick to parse. He looked down at his propped up leg. He looked up at the ceiling. He looked back at Edgar.

“Painkillers,” he said. “Bring some painkillers with you.”


	4. The Whole Universe is Laughing at You (You Just Gotta Learn to Laugh Back)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not strictly eating disorder stuff, but we do briefly talk about long stints of not eating so be warned on that front

 "It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever _valued_ or _struggled_ for... It's all a monstrous demented gag! So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?"

-Alan Moore, _The Killing Joke_

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

The Whole Universe is Laughing at You (You Just Gotta Learn to Laugh Back)

* * *

 

Although he was waving to Muffin before he actually got up over the hill, Edgar's priority for the morning was keeping an eye on the ground in front of him. The highway to Hell was safely on his right, but you could never be entirely sure what would pop out of the dirt around here. He was not excited about the prospect of stepping on another winged rabbit.

"Good morning!" he stage-whispered, as he came down the hill.

The deity loaded on Muffin's back gave a pointed snore. Edgar eyed Him suspiciously, not for the first time. Something was off about all that, he just couldn't put his finger on _what._ Muffin blinked and scuttled closer. "Morning is an Earthly construct, Edgar-man. But you do seem… good."

Edgar held out the battered box of poptarts. "Guess who finally gets to take a taste of these big boys?"

Muffin stared at him. He paused. "Okay," he said, "I can see how that came out a little... off."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Muffin said, still staring, "I was just thinking about what a horrific flavor cherry and mushroom is."

"Ah... hmm." Edgar tucked the box back against his side, a little nervous. "Well. I'll just be going then-"

"What did you mean by _off,_ Edgar-man?"

"What? Sorry? Couldn't hear you!" Edgar called, already hitting a brisk jogging pace before Muffin could ask him any unfortunate questions about English innuendos. His foot went through a hole in the turf almost immediately, and he tumbled forward out of that plane of existence entirely, into a starry darkness beneath the floor of Heaven. He sucked in a whooping heavy breath as his back hit dingy tile, extremely substantial, fading off into nothing as it went out from him.

He blinked up at the new twinkling void above him. He seemed to be forever falling through things around here. So where was this, then, Heaven's basement? He pulled himself to his feet and inspected the only other thing perched in the void with him: an elevator, or at least the compartment of one.

Okay, so how likely was it that if he stepped into this thing he'd be trapped forever? Edgar looked up again. Whatever way he'd got down here, he didn't think he'd be getting up that way again.

Well, alright. What was the worst that could happen?

About three seconds later the doors dinged open in a different room to reveal Edgar breathing hard and clutching his dead chest, pressed up against the corner as tightly as possible. He stumbled out of the compartment and into a subway station, quickly patting himself down to make sure he hadn't lost any bits in the freefalling descent through space and time. He thought he might have witnessed the heat death of the universe.

As he collected himself he meandered through the long hall, peering over the edge at the empty tracks below. So this must be the station he was always passing from the outside. Where did the people come from, he wondered. Or where did they go?

He came to a halt at the turnstiles. There was a coin slot, and a place to scan a pass. He fumbled in his pockets to find the visitor's badge and waved it over the glass two and then three times, as it made horrific beeping noises each time he got the angle wrong. Edgar paused to take a calming breath through his teeth. The underworld had _really_ perfected an art of irritation. He gave it one last swipe, and at last the light flashed green.

Past the next doorway there was a hall, with walls bearing posters in the vein of "Expect the worst" and "You really should have seen this coming". That had the right amount of gleeful gloom for a Hell LLC brand welcome. Maybe this was where all the new arrivals came through. He could ask Jimmy about it, Jimmy would almost certainly know-

Edgar tucked the cardboard box back against his side. Jimmy. Maybe-dangerous, unstable, _unusual_ Jimmy. It would be so easy to underestimate a kid like that, if Edgar didn't already know something. _Suspect_ something, at least. And what he suspected was that nobody in a half mile radius was entirely safe in Jimmy's company.

Edgar found his footsteps speeding up, and pretended to wonder why.

Edgar walked out under the reddish glow of the city with the box of toaster pastries tucked under one arm. No sun here, but Al gave him a friendly blink from his spot in the sky. Edgar felt the pleasant heat of the air prickle over his skin and smiled, looking out on the city with a new fondness. An endless street to explore, a mystery to prod at, a new maybe-friend. You know what? Death was pretty alright. He should have done this years ago.

On the doorstep of the strange apartment, Edgar paused to swallow down something he hesitated to call butterflies. No sooner had his knuckles left the plywood of Jimmy’s apartment than the teen’s suspicious little face glared out from behind the cracked door. He squinted out into the light, and then, with a sigh that resembled relief, said, “Oh. Hey, fairy boy.”

Edgar’s mouth twisted down. “I guess that’s a _miniscule_ improvement, okay.”

“D’you bring those, uh-” Jimmy snapped his fingers impatiently, “-painkillers?”

“Well…” Edgar held out his mostly forgotten shopping bag, a few orange RX bottles clinking together in the bottom. “I picked up a couple different kinds, but uh…”

Jimmy shoved his arm into the bag and pried the lid off one bottle, shaking out a handful of shriveled macaroni elbows and a puff of lint. He stared at his hand in dumfounded disbelief.

“They’re all like that,” Edgar said. “I don’t think they actually have drugs in the afterlife.”

Jimmy lifted one macaroni elbow between his black nails and, like a man in a trance, crunched it between his teeth. Then he spit it right back out again. He scrubbed at his mouth with an expression of perfect misery.

“Yeah,” Edgar winced. “Here, do you need a hand…?”

Edgar hooked an arm under Jimmy’s shoulder, before he could recover himself one way or another, and led him back to the couch that sat like a sullen monster in its concrete and nylon lair. As soon as he hit the cushion, Jimmy waved Edgar off like a circling housefly. “I got it,” he said, swinging his leg back up onto the coffee table with a _wumph_. Through the same torn jeans as yesterday, Edgar could make out swollen but whole flesh around the break. Mostly better, then, although he doubted getting up to answer the door was making it heal any faster.

Jimmy paused his adjustments to glare up at Edgar, who was hovering pretty close despite his best efforts to give the invalid some breathing room. Edgar put up his hands and shuffled backward. Satisfied but still suspicious, Jimmy finished his careful structuring of pillows and cushions and sat back. He lifted his eyebrows. “Welcome back,” he said, gesturing unenthusiastically at the room around him. “Mi casa, su casa, whatever. Didn’t you want something?”

Ah! Edgar set down the shopping bag and presented his prize for consideration. “Would you like one?” he said, popping the cardboard lid at long last.

“Are you fucking kidding me? That shit looks like it’ll knock me back into my grave.”

“Suit yourself,” Edgar said. “I’ll make you something else, if you want.”

As he picked his way through the pots and pans and kitchenware that he’d forgotten he left strewn across the kitchen yesterday, it occurred to him that there was not actually any other food in the house—except, technically, the medical macaroni. He picked up a salt cellar and shook a single sad flake out of it. Nope.

“You?” Jimmy said. “Make _me_ something? What’re you gonna do, fry up a toadstool?”

"You haven't seen me cook yet, oh ye of little faith," Edgar replied, shooting a quick grin over the partition, and dropped his pastries into the toaster. He could brag a little bit, there wasn't any law against it.

"What, are you good?"

"Good enough," Edgar replied, moving back over to the partition to lean across it. "Poptarts are not the limit of my culinary expertise, you know."

Jimmy smiled a shark’s smile. “Gay,” he said.

Edgar propped his cheek up on his hand, frowning. “Ninety-nine percent of the chefs on Earth are men, and the majority of _them_ are straight.”

“That’s different,” Jimmy said, sinking back down below the back of the couch. “That’s like a job. You’re just dancing around your house wearing an apron.”

“Mmmm, hate to let you down, but I don’t dance. I’m not a dancing type.”

Jimmy’s narrow eye peeked over the top of the couch. “The fuck kind of human are you? Of course you dance.”

Edgar lifted his arms, shrugging broadly. “Didn’t fancy getting laughed at much as a teenager, so I never learned.”

“Just don’t be _bad_ at it,” Jimmy grumbled, as if it was that simple. After a moment, he added, “But seriously, I can't cook worth shit. If you wanna come back some time and like, make dinner, I'd owe you big time. I haven't eaten since I died."

“You know you don’t have to, right?”

“I don’t?”

Edgar frowned again. “No,” he said, “it’s just a luxury, like beer. So wait, you’ve been here for three days and you didn’t eat anything even though you thought you _had_ to?”

Jimmy twirled a hand carelessly above the couch. “No biggie. Kinda confined to the couch at the moment.”

“But you had enough time to steal liquor.”

“Eh. I've gone a lot longer before."

At least he didn’t sound proud of it. Edgar would really have had to worry about that. “…What’s your record?” Edgar asked.

“A week,” Jimmy said, definitely sounding proud now. At the look that Edgar was giving him, he conceded, “but I was drinking the whole time, so.”

"Why would you need to go that long without food?"

“I was on the road,” Jimmy said. “Ran outta cash. There was this big fucker of an argument back home and I hit the road with my suitcase, and I didn’t ever look back.”

More theft, then. A picture was starting to come together of the life Jimmy had left behind. Imagine going a week without food, then working up the energy to go out and fight for one more meal. The kid was a survivor, for sure. Whatever killed him must have had some real _teeth_. “So you didn’t die of starvation?” Edgar asked.

"Not starvation, no." His host's mood darkened suddenly, and unnervingly. "It was a lot less fun than that."

“What could possibly be less fun than—”

The toaster _pinged_ , startling Edgar so hard that he nearly bounced back off the partition. He left the question abandoned and hanging behind him as he rescued his snack and tried to cool off the sugar coating that was starting to boil unpleasantly at the edges.

He carried the poptart out like a hot potato and dropped it on the coffee table, across from Jimmy’s slumped form. He crossed his legs and started picking the crust away from the jelly center, carefully eating that first. Jimmy watched him in silent disgust and fascination. When Edgar tried to offer him a corner, he pretended like he hadn’t been paying attention.

It dawned on Edgar, as he scraped the last crumb into his palm for disposal, that he was at the end of his adventure here. Mission accomplished. As much as he’d like to stick around and make sure Jimmy didn’t overexert himself, he severely doubted that Jimmy would even consider being coddled like that. He struck Edgar as a guy hell-bent on making his own way, even to a spiteful degree.

“It really _is_ depressing in here,” Edgar remarked, looking at the flaking walls. If they couldn’t be bothered to plaster the place, couldn’t they have at least painted it?

“I know,” Jimmy groaned, “I’ve been staring at it all night and I think I’m gonna _lose_ it if I spot one more dead spider.”

Edgar uneasily toed the nearby corpse of a shriveled brown spider under the coffee table. “I can’t see anybody living here long term,” he said. “Not happily, anyways.”

“Whoever built this place deserves a worse hell than living in it.” 

“It’s mostly just that it’s not _finished_ ,” Edgar said. A thought was occurring to him, as he eyed the bare curtain rods.

“Well _I’m_ sure as fuck not gonna do anything with it,” Jimmy said.

Edgar looked back to him. “Can I?”

“Can you what?”

“Fix it up,” Edgar said. He leaned forward over the table. “I’ve recorded every episode of trading spaces since TLC starting running it. I bet you I could make it livable.”

For a second Jimmy was quiet. He looked, as he usually did, like he was trying to figure out where Edgar had hidden his fifth ace card at the poker table. He snuck a glance at his leg and sighed. "Fine. But for the love of fuck, you better _not_ make it smell like paint in here."

 

 

 

In the end, Edgar had to make two trips. The first trip, he swung back into the apartment with two cans of paint and no paintbrushes. From the couch, Jimmy surveyed the situation.

"You," he said, "are a fucking ditz." But he said it with something like a smile.

The second trip went better, although Edgar was so deep in thought against the counter of the Home Despot, taking apart Jimmy’s not-quite-smile, that he nearly missed the cashier dropping two heavy bags into his forgotten, open palm.

Once he cracked open the paints and got to work, back in the apartment, silence prevailed for half an hour or so—awkward at first, then settling into a natural hum of traffic and thoughts. It was almost meditative, except for the part where someone was staring at him.

“Hey,” Jimmy said, after his long thoughtful silence. “Serious question. What the fuck kind of color are you painting my living room?”

Edgar stepped back, absently wiping a spotted hand across the concrete wall. “It’s—” he dug in his pocket and checked the swatch, “—‘blister blue’. Sorry, they all have names like that. Mauve is pretty popular right now, or it was when I died anyways. I should check if Al can tune into TLC from down here, I’m starting to feel a little out of date.”

“It’s hideous.”

“It’s not hideous,” Edgar explained patiently. “It’s fashionable. And androgynous, too, good for resale value.”

Jimmy squinted at him. “Resale to _who?_ ”

Edgar ignored him. “It'll complement the white countertops, or maybe something in green granite, if you were interested in that style.”

“Are you having a stroke here?”

Edgar paused, and then he started laughing. He rubbed a spot of paint from his cheek. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe I’m in a little deep. It’s just… nice to have a project again.”

 _“Deep_ would be just buying those two different kinds of rollers. What you’re doing is _drowning_.”

Edgar eyed the hasty ring of blue tape around the bottom of every wall, even ones he didn't have enough supplies to start on. There _was_ an awful lot of it. “Well,” he said, “looks like I’m taking you down with me, at least.”

Jimmy let out a bark of unexpected laughter and flopped back into the couch. “Jesus," he sighed, "where’d that macaroni go? I’m officially desperate enough to give it another try.”

Edgar shook a paintbrush at him. “That’s irresponsible handling of narcotic pasta, young man. I’m going to have to report you.”

“The fuck,” Jimmy said, pale cheeks starting to go pink with laughter, “who you gonna report me to, the Hell Narcs?”

“Hold on,” Edgar said, and mimed dialing a phone. “Yes, DARE Officer, I’ve got a friend who just won’t say no to drugs, no matter how many promotional pencils I give him.”

“Come a little closer,” Jimmy said, beckoning with a painted finger, “I’ll show you all what I can do with a couple pencils.”

They grinned at each other for a moment, until the moment began to dawn on Jimmy, and slowly his smile faded into uncertainty. He was the first one to break eye contact. Edgar dipped his paintbrush again and went back to work, brows furrowed as he stared into the wall. That had been a nice moment. What was the problem?

“So, uh,” Jimmy said, after a while. “How did _you_ die?”

Edgar froze. He didn’t like to lie, but he was perfectly cognizant of what thin ice they were treading here. "Maybe it was a tragic accident,” he said, careful to keep his voice light and casual. “Maybe some drunken _mall goth_ dropped a wine bottle on my head while he was giving me an attitude."

Jimmy regarded him with a strange expression. "...If I wasn't crippled, I'd kick your ass."

Edgar smiled—thin ice and all, he liked the guy. It was difficult to keep in mind that his host could very easily be a psychopath just as dangerous as Johnny C. And just because Edgar was dead didn't mean he couldn't be hurt.

But you know, maybe he wasn't. As dangerous, he meant.

“No but seriously,” Jimmy said. “What got you for real?”

Edgar’s smile shrunk. “I really don’t want to talk about it,” he answered with a genuine grimace. He could still feel the way his skin had torn pore from pore, the pull of the straps, the faint creaking that ran through him down to his bones. He’d rather think about Johnny than about his awful machine, any place any time. "It was incredibly painful. Lots of blood."

Jimmy, for his part, looked begrudgingly impressed. "How the hell'd a guy like you end up like that?"

"Wrong place, wrong time," Edgar shrugged, dripping paint onto the carpet. Wasn't that always the way it went?

"I'm surprised a fairy like you could manage to get into that much trouble."

Edgar sighed. "I'm a person, Jimmy, not a fairy."

"A fruit."

"No."

"A fag, then."

"I'm _not_ a fag, Jimmy."

"Queer?"

"I'm not gay!"

"Oh, so you just like men."

"Exac— _stop it!_ "

Jimmy tumbled off the couch, laughing till he ran out of air. His guest scowled and went back to painting with a fervor born of embarrassment, and maybe a little fear. Rationally, he could understand that Jimmy probably meant no harm by it. He seemed convinced enough of his own conclusions, and he hadn’t shown a hint of violence about it since the start. It was just—how can you _know?_  One wrong step, and everything falls through. How were you supposed to handle these conversations? It wasn't like he had any experience. Okay, things like this happened a couple times in high school, but for the most part up until his death Edgar had only ever been a nobody. No one had been _interested_ enough to pick at him. It was like being… not exactly _invisible,_ but…

On the floor, Jimmy’s laughter had settled down into quiet, amused huffs. When Edgar ventured a glance his way, he found Jimmy already watching him, something almost fond on his narrow face.

“Y’know,” he said, “you make it way too easy for guys like me.”

“Guys like you,” Edgar echoed, thinking a few choice descriptions of his own.

"There's guys like me, and then there's guys like you. Everybody knows that. Victim," Jimmy said, pointing vaguely up at Edgar, "Hard working salt of the earth," he said, jerking a thumb back down at himself with a grin.

 _"Salted_ earth, maybe," Edgar said.

Jimmy ignored him. “You gotta stand up for yourself, man," he said. He lowered his smudged eyelids, his gaze glinting up at Edgar from behind black lashes, his smile darkening. "Before it's too late. You look like I could do anything to you and you’d just lie back and _let_ me.”

A chill ran up Edgar’s spine. “I think you’d find me less malleable than I look.”

Jimmy tucked his hands under his head, leg still hung over the coffee table, perfectly content to watch Edgar from the floor. He looked so different at that moment than he did when he was grumbling miserable and in pain. There was a flash of a person in there somewhere, underneath the cynicism and the resentment. A person who might have been happy once. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said.

Edgar pinched the hem of his shirt, studying it for a moment. “So will I,” he murmured. “But I think with each day that goes by, I’m changing a little bit more...”

He spared a glance for the thief on the floor, who seemed nonplussed by the whole moment. “You want a hand up?” Edgar offered.

Jimmy considered the ceiling briefly, and then he shrugged. He stuck his hand up in the air. Edgar reached down and took it, heaving Jimmy up to his one good foot. The younger man wobbled, reached out, and slapped a steadying hand into Edgar’s shirt. They both looked at the place his grip had landed. A stamp of purple paint covered Edgar’s chest, transferred from his hand to Jimmy’s and, now, back to him. They both eyed their sticky fingers.

Jimmy giggled. And it was adorable. Like, weirdly but definitely adorable. Edgar put a hand to his mouth to hide a giggle of his own, and when the laughter didn't stop coming, he gave up and leaned into Jimmy's shoulder, just laughing. What was he doing here? Who the fuck did he think he _was?_ Everything was suddenly funny, like the universe was one big joke, and he was the punch line. So he laughed. At the absurdity of life—and death—and how much the world had changed in so little time. At how much he was changing.

 _I wonder if you are too,_ he thought. _I wonder what that would even look like._


	5. One Slap Two Slap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god nerds have changed a lot since the era of this story.

Who are you trying to punish?

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

One Slap, Two Slap / Red Slap, Blue Slap

 

* * *

The day was as bright as it always was, and the complex of apartments was as quiet as the proverbial grave. Jimmy answered the door almost before Edgar could finish knocking, his eyes glittering out from the shadows. They seemed smaller today, less unnerving, with the kohl he'd died in finally scrubbed off. They seemed almost bruised.

"Come into my parlor," he said, flashing his jagged teeth.

Edgar tried not to have second thoughts about this relationship. "Said the spider to the fly," he murmured, ducking down past Jimmy as the younger man pushed the door the rest of the way open. "You're still walking around on that," he remarked, eyeing the knee gingerly bent behind the edge of the door.

Jimmy rolled his eyes and slumped his whole shoulder against the door until it closed. "You have some other magical way of getting inside?" he said.

Edgar lifted a finger, and then dropped it. "Touche," he said.

The room had hardly been disturbed since he left last, although the night had been awfully short this time so he ought not to be surprised if not much had happened. Jimmy watched him from the door as he went about unpacking the painting supplies again, arms crossed over his chest, resembling--unfortunately--nothing so much as a spider lurking at the edge of its web.

"So," he said, after a while, "you some kind of artist?"

Edgar had to pause in the middle of picking paint flecks from the small brush to laugh. "Me? No, I'm all thumbs on a drawing pad."

"Then what's your obsession with my house?"

 _House,_ he noticed. Quick turn around on _dismal fucking shack_ , in his opinion. Edgar didn't even you could go that fast from dismissive to possessive.

"I wouldn't say I'm _obsessed,"_ Edgar replied. "Bored, maybe."

"Don't you have any, like, unfinished business you can be working through? Somebody else you can haunt besides me?"

Edgar raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, you know I'm not a ghost, don't you?" He pinched the skin of his elbow, holding it out for display. "I'm made of the same stuff as you. Whatever that is."

"I _know,"_ Jimmy said. He pressed a palm to the wall and started to limp his way back to the couch, brows furrowed in what might have been annoyance, or pain. "I just meant like, don't you have some old enemies you can stalk?"

"Real people don't have _enemies_." Edgar snorted. "Unless they're politicians, maybe. But I don't know if I'd call them real people either."

"Okay, friends and family then, Mr. Boring," Jimmy said. As he lunged back over to the edge of the couch and crawled over the side like a disabled lizard, he paused with one knee perched on the armrest and added, "And I've got a _shit ton_ of enemies, so that shows what you know."

"Uh," Edgar said. "No."

"No?" Jimmy echoed. "What do you mean _no_."

"They deliberately separate families down here," Edgar said. "You're still young, I guess. You wouldn't notice."

"I'm not much younger than you," Jimmy snapped. "Anyways, what are you gonna tell me, you don't have any friends around either? In a city with a murder rate like ours?"

 Edgar bent down and gathered up his brushes, mostly to keep from looking at his host. "Not one that could see me now," he said.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Edgar answered, picking himself up and entering the kitchenette.

"What? Why not?" Jimmy called after him.

"Just because." Edgar twisted the tap and focused his energy on thoroughly rinsing out the bristles, scraping dried paint from the handle with his nails and generally going overboard with the soap. "I'm sure there's something in your life you don't want to talk about."

"Not me," Jimmy said, immediately. "I'm an open book."

Edgar gave the backsplash a disbelieving look. "…Not even your love life?" he said.

"Love?" Jimmy said, "Yeah right." For a moment there was a hard silence, and then more brightly, he added, "'Course, if you wanted to hear about my sexual escapades, I can tell you _all_ about that."

Edgar's eyes went a bit wide. "No, no, I'm fine. Please don't." He started to refocus on the brush, only to discover it was now spotlessly clean. Damn. He flipped it over to be sure, but there was nothing else to be done, so he re-entered the living room. 

Jimmy wasn't even looking at him as he came back through. He'd rolled up the leg of his black jeans and started prodding at the wound beneath the closed skin, mottled with bruises and swollen like something rotten. Even in Hell, it seemed, things had to get ugly before they could heal. Edgar figured the best way to avoid continuing that conversation was to just not have it, so he turned back to the wall and got down to work. He had started on the one behind Jimmy's couch the first day, and now he was a bit more than half way done with this one too; two to go, and then he could crack down on that crown molding. He kicked aside Jimmy's long abandoned shoes as he moved closer to the door, and then, on second thought, set them back upright and off out of the way.  

"By the way, I like your boots," he called out, fastening a loose buckle. A rustling sound told him that Jimmy popped up over the side of the sofa, probably giving him the squinty eye.

"What the hell, man?" Jimmy demanded. "Where did _that_ come from?"

"I don't know," Edgar said. "I just like them. They have personality."

Worn black, lace-up-and-buckle monstrosities with absolutely no subtlety or consideration for the common welfare. They sported a bit of a heel, and splotched stains of what Edgar suspected, in a moment of dramatic weakness, to be blood darkening the worn leather. They had an air of what could only be called Johnny-ness, but the closer he looked the more it seemed strained somehow—like that had been added on later.

"Don't make a homophobic crack about fashion, please?" he said, as he straightened up again.

Jimmy was, indeed, watching him again, doubtfully. "Personality?" was all he said.

"Yes," Edgar answered. "They're very... you."

Jimmy broke out laughing, something that rather puzzled Edgar. It's not like he'd said anything weird. They _were_ very Jimmy. A little Johnny too, but...

"They got a story, you know," he said, sitting forward, as if he were eager to let Edgar in on the secret. "I got 'em from a friend. We set up this satanic ritual back in 11th grade. Those were my bribe for helping out. 'Course, the joke was on him 'cause I woulda done it anyways. That was before I knew what a mediocre suburban shithole Hell was, obviously."

"Generous friend," Edgar said, nudging the toe.

The younger man leaned over the arm of the couch—he was like a cat, the way he simply crawled over every inch of furniture—and followed Edgar with his naked unlined eyes. "Chuey wasn't really a _friend_ , per say," he admitted. "I didn't really _have_ friends."

Lavender veins struck through the pale skin of his eyelids, worrying Edgar with every slow blink. He was bruised without ever having been hit, inflamed without ever having been cut.

"No?" Edgar murmured. "I know the feeling."

Things that had seemed almost goofy at first sight—the blotchy skin, the crooked teeth, the choppy uneven hair—disappeared under the weight of other, stranger things. The glittering eyes. The lavender veins. It was like looking at a magic eye painting, the skull that emerges from the endless pattern of roses. The more familiar Edgar became with his features, it seemed, the less he knew how to understand them. 

"Annnnnyway," Jimmy said, settling back down again, "Chuey was cheap as shit, so he just stole them."

  

 

 

On the corner of Styx and Acheron Road there was a rarity for Hell: a well-stocked bookseller which carried actual books and not magazines. Styx split the city roughly in two, with self-designated _normal_ people on one side and what could most politely be termed _alternative_ people on the other. To Edgar, it seemed more like a split between blithering idiots and arrogant know-it-alls, with a lovely mixture in the middle. The bookstore in question was at the edge of that glorious melting pot, making interaction with its employees about as fun as an unanaesthetized root canal.

But the selection was excellent, and Edgar could never resist the lure of books. Just looking in with his nose pressed against the window, he felt like a Dickensian orphan salivating over a candy shop. He'd been in there before, or rather he had _tried_ to get in there--every time he took more than a step inside the employees all sent up a panic that drove him back out onto the street in seconds. He'd been called everything from a prep to a jock-strapped meathead, and had absolutely no idea how to make it stop.

Today he leaned against the wall just outside of the wide window and tapped the brick thoughtfully. He'd been pondering Jimmy's assessment of him ever since the first painting day, sticking on it like a scratched CD. Was he a pushover? Certainly he tended to follow the path of least resistance. Did he need to try a different approach? Being himself was clearly not doing the trick.

How would... Jimmy... handle this situation? 

He took a quick peek around the edge of the window, and then sucked in a deep breath. When in Rome, as they say, one _should_ do as the Romans do.

Edgar kicked open the door with one foot, glaring into the room with his glasses lowered. He cried, "I demand Machiavelli!"

There was silence. And then there was a rush of interest. A dozen employees poured out from behind the shelves, eyes fixed on him. Edgar resigned himself to screaming only internally as they closed in on him like a hungry herd of lizards. "What do you want with some crusty old medieval guy," one of them asked, the one at the front. His jangling multitude of piercings marked him as some kind of a tribal leader, perhaps an assistant manager.

Edgar pushed his glasses up on his nose imperiously and stood his ground. "I'm penning an edgy new vampire novel about a hot evil lord of the dead who crushes preps and normals under his magnificent boot," he said. "I am doing Research. Assist me now and I will include all of you in his beautiful immortal court of the undead."

They stared at him. One at the back raised her hand. "Do we get to have multicolored hair and matching eyes?"

Edgar pointed at her _. "Yes,"_ he said, "definitely." 

The herd practically erupted around him, all but lifting him off the ground to get him where he was going. Someone was chattering in his ear about what kind of wings they wanted to have, someone else was describing in intimate detail how their cloak absolutely _had_ to match their hair. Edgar just did his best to ride the wave of excitement, pleased and surprised with his own success. You just have to give the people what they want, he guessed. Which in this crowd apparently meant fictional makeovers.

When at last they deposited him in the row marked "Old Boring Stuff", the crowd only barely receded around him. "We never sell anything in this back section," the probable assistant manager chattered, "so you can just take it. Wouldn't dream of getting in the way of that novel. Left back shelf."

Pulling his arm away from Probable Manager's urgent grip, Edgar swaggered in between the cases, nose wrinkling at the cobwebs and gratuitous dust. Glancing back behind him, he noticed that all the workers were still crowded at the entrance, staring at him. No... no, that wasn't going to work. He tossed his head and pointedly turned away from them all. "I'm a writer, and I'm ignoring you now," he called out.

They scattered, whispering amongst themselves.

Edgar held his breath for a second, and then when nothing more happened, slumped back against the bookshelf in bewildered laughter. That worked. That had _actually_ worked. Of course it probably helped that he'd had to go buy a new shirt after Jimmy got purple handprints all over his last one. He went back to the same Macy's too, despite the twinge of terror that went up his spine just looking at the place. What could he say? He'd never claimed to be an entirely healthy person. And scary as that sales guy had been, he'd had a good eye for sizing.

Edgar selected two books from the dusty collection, _The Prince_ and _The Canterbury Tales._ Of course he considered adding _The Divine Comedy_ to the list, but dismissed it as too paradoxical. He'd had a copy of all three before he died, but it's true what they say: you can't take it with you. Was it a little paranoid that he flipped through the books to make sure there were actually words on the pages before he bought them? After what happened with the macaroni, he did not think so.

Edgar plopped the books down on the check-out counter and tried to look as arrogant as possible. There was a sound of scuffling and a muted yelp, and then Probable Manager emerged from behind the nearest stacks, smoothing his badly dyed hair back into place. "That'll be all for you?" he asked, leaning far enough over the counter that Edgar could actually see down the front of his V-neck shirt.

Edgar just nodded, to be on the safe side.

"So, uh," Probable Manager said, ringing up the first book as slowly as physically possible, "how long have you been dead for?"

Edgar frowned. "I've kind of lost track," he admitted.

"Haha, yeah," Probable Manager said. "That's _so_ true. So like, do you go dancing?"

"Er," Edgar said, thoroughly thrown by the shift in conversation.

"Because I know this great old place on Seventh," he carried on, "not like, _last week_ old but like, fashionably old?"

What the fuck did that mean? "You've been holding my book for a while," Edgar pointed out uneasily.

"Oh." Probable Manager glanced down at his hand and then quickly swiped the item. "So anyways, I'm free tonight, if you wanna get down. Or _go_ down, I'll skip the foreplay if you will."

Edgar grimaced. "Will you turn on the card machine?" he asked.

Probable Manager belatedly hit the button. "Come on," he cajoled, "why are you being coy all of a sudden? I know what a man like you needs."

Edgar swiped his card as quickly as possible, and considered that in retrospect starting this adventure by describing a fictional man as _hot_ had probably not been the best way to remain in the closet. He tucked his wallet away again. "No thanks," he said.

Probable Manager pulled back, expression clouding with irritation. "Why're you being such a bitch? What, you think you're too good for me? You fucking creative types."

"Maybe I'm not super into being propositioned for dance club bathroom sex while I'm trying to get through check out?"

"No, I know what your problem is," Probable Manager said, jabbing a finger at Edgar,  "you're a cowardly little closet case. You're too scared of your own sexuality to get dicked down like a _real_ gay man."

SMACK

Edgar gaped down at his hand, which had, completely of its own accord, reached out and slapped the man. Hard.

"Ugh, you bitch!" Probable said, clutching his bright red face, "What was that for?"

Edgar clutched his books to himself as he wrung out his stinging other hand. "How about you mind your own business unless you know me, alright?"

He all but jogged out the door before Probable could say anything else, not fully relaxing until he was far out of sight of the bookstore's store font. Was that too much? Too little? Did whatshisface being not entirely wrong give him the right to talk to Edgar like that? He dug the heel of his hand into his eye, all at once exhausted by everything and everyone. And confused.

Was it so much to ask that people maintain even a _façade_ of politeness around here _?_

 

 

"You _slapped_ him?"

Edgar glared across the room, hands on hips. "Well, what else was I supposed to do?"

"I dunno," Jimmy snorted, "had to be something less girly."

Edgar gave up on using his words at that point and just flipped Jimmy off. The immediate burst of gratified laughter lifted his mood slightly. Of course Edgar had gone straight over to the apartment after the whole ordeal. He wasn't sure he could handle dodging citizens just now, and while he'd explained on arriving that he'd had a sudden urge to paint, the truth was that out of all the thousands of human souls in this labyrinthine city, Jimmy was the closest one he could come to calling a friend. And Jimmy found the whole business utterly hilarious, so at least someone was enjoying themselves.

"It's good to know you got a spine after all, though," Jimmy snickered, glancing over the top of his couch. "Gotta fight back or people'll eat you alive."

"I never had problems with this on Earth," Edgar muttered, returning to his paint.

"Yeah, well, you didn't dress like that, then. Because, trust me, no one will be ignoring you in those clothes."

That again. Edgar scratched a nail over the roaring tiger face emblazoned across his chest. It reminded him of the elegant eastern tattoos he'd always been too nervous and respectable to consider getting. "I'm not _trying_ to draw attention to myself," he said, "I'm just trying not to get picked up for public nudity."

Jimmy ducked back down behind the couch. "Well, it must suit you if you're getting hit on in the middle of the street."

"No," Edgar sighed, "It just means that people around here have poor taste."

"What? In clothes or in people?"

"Both."

Nobody said anything. Edgar hunched over the paint can he was trying to pry the lid off and felt his ears go hot. Stupid, stupid awkward conversational misstep. Don't insult yourself in front of company, Edgar, you know better.  

"...Why would you be a poor choice in people?"

Edgar looked up. He really didn't want to talk about that, especially not in front of Jimmy. It wasn't in his nature to lie, but this was one more thing he would be more than happy to never discuss. "Well," he replied, slowly, hoping that Jimmy might take mercy on him, "I make people around me... unhappy."

The younger man climbed awkwardly over the back of his couch and scooted over to sit by Edgar, looking interested. "What'd you do to 'em?"

"Exist, I guess," Edgar muttered. He handed Jimmy the roller and waited for him to get a new coat of paint on it before taking it back. "People just aren't happy around me," Edgar shrugged. "Bad things happen to them. My mother broke more bones in her lifetime than an extreme sportsman, and she worked in a movie store. My first girlfriend had her dog run over a week after we got together, my best friend's dad was killed in the army, my prom date contracted meningitis, my favorite professor was almost killed by a bus, my student..."

"Are you, like, cursed?"

"Not that I know of," Edgar sighed. "Bad things happen. That's all. It's not a curse, it's just really terrible luck that they all happened around me at the same time. It did make holding onto a relationship pretty difficult."

"Dude, are you sure you didn't commit suicide?"

Edgar flinched.

"Cause I knew guys who played the get-out-of-life free card for less than that," Jimmy went on, oblivious, "and I can't figure what else a guy like you could have done to get stuck down here."

"I told you I'm just visiting."

"Yeah, and you're the only guy who does that. _Suspect._ Look, I used to know this guy, Fish we called him, and he was alright, but he popped one off right through the back of the head last year and now there he is, bussing tables at the Second Ring, I saw him last night and he still looks exactly the same-"

Edgar squinted at him. "You saw him last night?"

"Yeah?"

"There's no way you could do that. Jimmy, you limped to the door when I got here! You couldn't possibly make it downtown in that shape."

If there was anyone who knew the layout of Hell better than Edgar by this point, it could only be the Devil himself. The murdered man spent eighty percent of his time wandering its streets, and no one as meticulous as he could travel a city by foot without mapping it out to the fullest metaphysical limit. It would take a good forty minutes for a healthy person just to get into the area, and Jimmy was not healthy, in any sense of the word.

"I had a ride," Jimmy said, looking distinctly smug now, "and it wasn't so bad last night."

"You set yourself back in healing by at least-" Edgar eyed the newly swollen flesh now covered by tight denim, "-at least a day."

Jimmy shrugged. "Well I lived with it when it was worse, so I'm not worried about it."

"You're going to get stuck like that if you don't lay off it," Edgar warned.

"Okay? So that's my problem."

"You don't want to live like that, do you?"

Jimmy shrugged again, more aggressively. "Well you'll just have to come be my nurse, if you're so goddamn worried about me."

They sat there, on the floor, eyeing each other like suspicious cats. Edgar hesitated. "Do you want to talk about-"

There was a snap of something thick in the air, tension like ozone just before a lightning strike. Jimmy leaned over to him and grabbed his chin with sharp black nails. "Mind," he said, "your own. Goddamn business."

There, now, was the dangerous thing that lurked under the ungainly vulgar outside, the graceful angry thing, the spider with its multitude of glaring eyes. Edgar tried squirming backwards in hopes of finding some spare oxygen. Where did all the air disappear off to? Was it hot in here?

"I was just trying-" he managed.

"Well fucking _stop_ ," Jimmy said, leaning in so close that Edgar could hear the tiny wet sound of his lips parting.

Was he afraid? In that moment Jimmy was overwhelming, his very presence choking and suffocating with something that made even ghostly hearts race, but Edgar did not think he was afraid. He reached blindly behind himself to gain some stability and hit the edge of the paint can with one hand, only to have it slide off and send him toppling backwards, arms windmilling in search of support.

_"Ouch!"_

"Motherf-”

Edgar looked up. Jimmy looked down. A red splotch bloomed to life on Jimmy's face. "What the fuck, man?" he demanded, fingering the spot down his cheek. "You just slapped me."

If Edgar could have disappeared in a puff of roadrunner smoke at that precise moment, you better believe he would already have been gone.


	6. Canto XIII : Scylla and Charibdis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> featured: alcohol dependency of one kind of another

"Your father and I were worried sick. What do you have to say for yourself, young man?"

"How about I'll see you in hell, you twisted bitch?"

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Canto XIII, or: Scylla and Charibdis

* * *

 

Edgar shifted from foot to foot in front of the big wooden sign outside of the apartment complex that read "Asphodel Fields", and the small plastic sign beneath that which read, "Why bother? It's not like you have any choice." He'd often wondered if the Devil oversaw putting this place together personally. It certainly had that touch of bleak humor, with an almost wistful undertone that seemed to speak of better times. But when had those been? A thousand years ago? A million? A billion? Before the start of time itself?

Okay, so Edgar was stalling. He was lollygagging a little bit. Well it was a long climb down, and he was already tired, and then there was the climb back up, and if he stopped for a nap in a nice dark theater somewhere in the middle, who would really be the wiser? Part of him had wanted to rush back to Jimmy’s apartment the moment he ran out the door, but the other part of him—the part that always managed to get a hand on the reigns—kind of wanted to disappear forever and never be seen again. He kept replaying that first walk across town in his mind, his hand on Jimmy’s ribs, the sound of their heavy breaths finally syncing after the fourth or fifth city block. Maybe he should have done it differently. Called a cab, or left the guy alone when he asked to be left alone. God, Jimmy must think he was such a tool.

What did he think he was doing, anyway, wriggling his way into the life of the first person to say five neutral words in his direction? Where did he get off acting like he was entitled to some part of Jimmy's afterlife?

Edgar took a step back, and then turned on his squeaky rubber heel. Anyways, he thought to himself, you knew this was never going to work out. Jimmy was in Hell for a reason, and that reason being that he was dangerous. Dangerous is bad. _Bad,_ damnit. It's not about what you want, he told himself, it's about what's best.

Edgar left the neighborhood, and if he didn't look back, it was only because he was afraid of tripping again.

He did nothing much of interest for three or so days. Slept a lot. Went shoe shopping. Read his books. Wandered out to the abandoned edges of the city in search of weird advertisement posters. If he were honest with himself—and boy, that would be a change—he would say he was lonely. Of course, he had Muffin and Al, and the bagel man, but those weren't really the sort of friends you could hang out with. Friendly faces, sure, but satisfying company? Not really.

It was deep into the third night before anything in town piqued his curiosity. He caught sight of a dingy car repair shop as he was leaving the theater the back way, emerging into unpleasant grey clouds that steamed up at night from every grate in the city. He paused to peer through the fog at the flickering neon sign. No one in Hell repaired anything as far as he had seen; they were too obsessed with buying new stuff to worry about the old. He didn't know what happened to the old things when people threw them away, but the fact of the matter was that Edgar had never seen anything in town with more than a scuff on it. 

As he picked his way through the alley, he began to make out movement from inside the garage. A greasy man in the corner was being restrained by two mechanics as they beat out the dents in what had apparently been his car. It was a bit hard to tell, though, squashed up like a pug's face the way it was. There was somebody behind the car, too, and _he_ looked oddly familiar. In fact he looked almost like… no, it couldn't be…

"Harry Roberts?" he called, ducking under the sloppily chained gate. "Is that you?"

The grey head of the older man up to his elbows in carburetor parts poked around the hood. _"Vargas?"_ he said.

Edgar jogged over, touched with a nostalgia for the old halls where he'd spent his last year of life, the familiar living world so far beyond him now. "What are you doing as a _mechanic?"_ he asked.

Roberts grimaced, scraping black grease from his forearms. "Turns out they don't have _schools_ in _Hell,"_ he said. "Master's degree down the fucking toilet, fine reward for my years of service to the community. I'm stuck in this, this, shitfuck blue-collar job if I want to pay off my Camaro in the next billion years." Then his eyes narrowed, taking in Edgar's appearance a second time. "But it looks like you already know _all_ about that, eh, Vargas?"

"Sorry?"

Roberts slammed the hood down on the car, stealing sly sideways glances at Edgar the whole time. "I bet it really chaps _your_ ass," he said. "After all those church bake sales, I bet it just burns you up."

Edgar shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not following," he said.

"Uhuh," Roberts said. He circled Edgar, eyeing the changes in his appearance with interest.  "You always thought you were better than the rest of us, didn't you? You were always _such_ a model of virtue, and _modest_ too. Too good for coffeecake with the faculty. Too good for _anyone."_

"Oh, I'm not--I mean, I never thought--"

"Sanctimonious St. Vargas," Roberts said, settling smugly against the side of the car. "How's it feel to be down here in the muck with the rest of us sinners?"

"I think you misunderstand," Edgar said, fumbling in his pockets for his wallet, where his visitor's pass was safely tucked away.

"I understand just fine," Roberts said, idly digging out grease from underneath his streaked nails. "Huh. I wonder how many people actually bought those simpering little sermons of yours. _God loves_ everyone _. Let's hold hands and sing about how lucky we are!_ I can't believe you had the nerve to bring that _shit_ to his funeral." 

Edgar paused, wallet forgotten in his hand. "Now see here," he started.

"See what?" Roberts laughed. "You? Damned for all eternity? I am seeing it, and let me tell you, it is doing my heart _good._ You _were_ always just a sad little man hiding behind his hippy dippy kumbaya therapist bullshit, weren't you?"

Edgar's heart cracked like flint striking stone. He grabbed Roberts by the collar and slammed him back into the car window, hard enough that the suspension creaked, hard enough that his eyes bulged with fear. "You can go fuck yourself, _Harry,_ if you think for one minute I didn't mean everything I said to those kids," he hissed.

"Vargas, you better remember who you're talking to-"

"Don't you _Vargas_ me, Harry. You're not my boss anymore, you emotionally stunted, resume-padding egotistical _wreck_ of an educator."

Roberts narrowed his eyes, coughing a little against the pressure of Edgar's knuckles. "You still think you're better than us," he said. "You _still_ think you're better than me."

"What I think," Edgar said, "is that you're a rude person, and I'm sorry I ever put up with your snide group memos."

"And I'm sorry I ever hired you!"

Edgar stared at him hard and then, all at once, deflated. "I'm not," he said. "That school meant something to me. I don't know if it ever meant anything to you, but..." Suddenly the caged animal look on his former boss's face didn't fill him with any kind of satisfaction. He drew back, aware of the fact that he was taller than Roberts for the first time in their entire acquaintanceship. He'd always thought himself smaller, somehow. "I never cared who was better than who," Edgar sighed, snapping a wrinkle loose from Roberts' shirt. "I just wanted you to take care of the _kids."_

Roberts batted away his hand and finished fixing his shirt himself. "What the fuck happened to you, Vargas?" he asked, stiff with wounded pride.

"Same as you," Edgar said, with a half-hearted shrug. He jammed his hands into his shallow pockets. "I died."

Roberts huffed. He turned back to the car, wrenching the hood open again as if nothing had transpired there in the last minute. "I liked you better when you weren't so aggressive."

 _When I was a cringing doormat, you mean_ , Edgar thought. He made himself stop before he could light that fire again and counted to three under his breath, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, Roberts was back up to his elbows in carburetor. Like nothing had happened. Like Edgar hadn't said anything interesting at all. He needed to get out of here while his head was still on his shoulders. He retreated, avoiding the eyes of the other mechanics who had become quite interested in the spectacle.  

"Have a nice afterlife," he said, pausing at the chain of the gate. It draped from his fingers, just above head height. "I hope you learn something down here."

Edgar left the establishment vexed and vengeful and morbid, dragging his sneakers over the concrete. Red neon was flickering to life all down the street ahead, as the last pink daylight faded from the edges of the sky. He followed the line of wakening lights without really seeing them, deep down Seventh Avenue into a part of the city he hadn't visited in a long time. A flash of white above a long window caught him from the corner of his eye, and without quite knowing how he got there, Edgar found himself standing beneath the glowing sign of the _Second Circle_.

God, he could use a drink. Or four. Didn't Jimmy say his friend bussed tabled here? There was a bass thump coming from the club that rattled the pebbles on the sidewalk like an earthquake. It seemed like as good a place to get lost in as any, which was what Edgar most desperately wanted--to lose himself entirely, to become a passing thought in the anonymous darkness. Didn't he _deserve_ that?

Edgar pulled his shirt down at the hem, suddenly very aware of how he must look lately. He forced it away, though. He was too wound up to waste time on his vanity.

Shoulders squared, Edgar pushed through the doors and into a room that bore more than a passing resemblance to a rave. A green spotlight swept over his face and blacked out his vision for a good long moment, sending him stumbling into the fringes of the mosh. His night vision slid back into place before he could get too terribly battered, at which point he he escaped over to the bar safely. The bartender looked like a neutral sort, and he said nothing when Edgar picked at random what was probably a very fruity drink, literally and figuratively. He supposed he ought to be grateful for that, but the rage of earlier had yet to completely dissipate.

Beyond his seat, the dance floor looked like one massive writhing animal lit in violet and green and pink. As his eyes adjusted, Edgar started to pick out individual dancers to focus on, each of them wild and surreal and fiercely determined. The very strange part, to him, was that none of them looked happy. He knew that if _he_ could get out there and dance like that, he'd be that happiest man alive, or dead. Once upon a time he’d been the kind of kid who performed routines behind the curtains of his own bedroom, carefree, effortless, but those days were long behind him now. When had he lost that? How many misspent middle school dances? How many homecomings wasted in hanging streamers for other people? Prom in a hospital waiting room. Parties never invited or attended.

He caught himself staring at one of the male dancers, one near the edge of the crowd moving with the wildness of fire, a mere silhouette of pulsing motion. The longer he watched the more he could feel his bitterness seep away, bit by bit. When he found his eyes trailing down the gyrating form, Edgar pinged a mental rubber band with almost subconscious automation. _No._

Then the rough outline of the figure’s head shifted, and Edgar knew at once that he was being stared back at. He ducked back down over the bar and buried his face in the drink waiting by his elbow. He took a sip; it really _was_ a fruity drink. Someone slipped into the stool next to him and drummed their fingers into the glossy wood. The dancer? Those fingers looked awfully familiar, black nails and slender fingers, almost sinister but not quite…

“So if it isn’t the fag,” said his neighbor, with a smirk in his voice.

Edgar’s head snapped up, wide eyed with the realization that the figure he’d been ogling was _Jimmy_ , Jimmy who was sitting next to him right now, watching him with glittering grey eyes. Edgar's mouth closed and opened silently.

“Good to see you too,” Jimmy snorted, stealing a quick shot of Edgar’s drink. “Hit it and quit it much?”

“—Jimmy!” Edgar said, several seconds behind the curve. “What are you doing here?”

The younger man squinted at him. “Dancing? Cause this is a dance club?”

Edgar dropped his face into his hand, his life flashing before his eyes. “Right,” he said. “I… saw. You’re very good.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Jimmy said. He dropped his lids, all neatly filled in now, black and almost sultry, as he leaned in against Edgar’s shoulder. He pushed the drink across the counter with one slender finger, until the cold edge bumped Edgar’s elbow. “But really,” he said, “what are _you_ doing here?”

Edgar regarded the glass dumbly for a moment, and then he slid it back around his other side without lifting his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m feeling really off.”

Jimmy’s grin faded, leaving something that could almost be mistaken for worry. “I’ll say,” he agreed, dropping his chin onto his fist in a lazy mirror of Edgar. “I thought for sure the sexy-molester routine was gonna shake you up.”

Edgar froze with his drink half way to his mouth. “The what now?”

“You keep doing this, like, catholic school girl thing,” Jimmy said. “This little red riding hood thing, every time I get too close to you.”

“I—beg your pardon?”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “This… skittery stumbly thing. Like you think I’m gonna hold you down and have my way with you.”

Edgar's eyes kind of glazed over at that.

"Maybe I should be offended," Jimmy went on, apparently not noticing the switchboard exploding into flames in Edgar's head. "Since, y'know, I'm not enough to get you all hot and bothered tonight."

The switchboard collapsed into a molten puddle and the little man in the swivel chair went screaming for cover. This all inside Edgar's head, of course.

Jimmy eyed his friend for a moment and then split from ear to ear into a grin. "There we go. Alright, we’re fine."

Shakily, the older man picked up his drink again and took a huge swallow. By the time he was done choking on _that_ , his mental situation had calmed down a bit.

"So tell me why you're really here?" Jimmy asked, once Edgar's breathing had settled. "It can't be 'cause you wanted a fuzzy navel. The drinks here are shit."

“Uh. Honestly I was just lost and passing by, so I came inside. A bar seemed like a good place to be depressed and angry.”

“Well a bar, yeah,” Jimmy said, eyebrows jumping, “but the Second Ring?”

"What about it?" Edgar asked, nonplussed. He eyed the undulating crowd and the bright lights, spared a second to notice the blatantly sexual music, but _come on_ , he was only twenty-seven and it wasn't like he'd never been to a nightclub before.

"It's…" Jimmy trailed off. He cast a sly look Edgar's way. "Nothing. Just couldn't picture you at a dance club. Thought you said you didn’t dance?"

"No, you're right," Edgar answered wistfully. "Not to say I don’t regret it sometimes."

Jimmy grinned and lightning-fast took Edgar's hand, pulling him off his barstool. "So," he said, "I'll just have to teach you!"

"Christ, Jimmy!" Edgar yelped, fighting for release. "It's not that I _don't_ dance, it's that I _can't!"_

Jimmy only snickered and held on tighter, drawing Edgar deep into the throbbing heart of the dance floor, more mosh than music at this depth. Several people hip-checked Edgar in the mêlée. As Jimmy looked back over his shoulder, black lids and glittering eyes and draping fishnets, Edgar was reminded of the old monsters, Scylla and Charibdis. The clashing cliffs and the sea serpent. The proverbial rock and the hard place.

“Don’t freak out,” Jimmy laughed, pulling his new student close against him. “Most of the guys I dance with have three left feet anyway.”

 _You dance with guys?_ Edgar wanted to ask, completely lost by this point in the evening, but before he could even open his mouth to shout Jimmy had dragged him close and tight. He dropped his grip from Edgar’s wrists to his hips and pulled _like so_ , driving their hips together with a force that short circuited Edgar's still-recovering brain.

"Jimmy!" he managed to shout, struggling to disentangle and, of course, failing.

"What?" Jimmy asked with mock innocence. "We're _dancing_."

He lowered one hand to the back of Edgar’s thigh, urging him to bob in time to the beat underneath the beat, the slower thump under the frantic drum machine.

“See?” Jimmy shouted. “It’s not the fuckin’ Olympics!”

In the next ten minutes, Edgar almost lost his glasses three times and almost stepped on Jimmy once, but after that he felt himself _sink_ into the rhythm, somehow. The world slowly dimmed to flashes of multi-colored light and pounding air and the feeling of Jimmy's body against his. Sweat stung his eyes, but it was far away and not quite real, not compared to the way that Jimmy's eyes were level with his own and alive in a way they never had been before, his fingers sliding under Edgar's shirt as he held them together. Somewhere in the back of his head, he thought he should've been bothered by that, but why? Why, when it was so good and Jimmy was so happy, and he was _dancing_ , and the world was finally quiet inside of his head-

He thought dimly, _And this is supposed to be Hell?_

He thought he caught sight of Jimmy winking, in the stop-motion flash stutter of the lights above them, the snapshot lights with their dreamy urgency—Jimmy took hold of his hand and spun him around, wrapped an arm around the front of his chest and pulled them tight against each other, ground himself into Edgar’s back.

Edgar stiffened. And then, unfortunately, Edgar stiffened. Jimmy paused behind him, confused at the break in the motion, and then, maybe on a whim, ran a hand over the inseam of Edgar’s jeans. His hand bumped hardness and drew back, fluttering over the bulge, and then gleefully clutched down at it. For a moment, Edgar really thought his heart would give out. He wrenched himself free and stumbled back, bouncing off the hard edges of bodies and losing himself deeper into the crowd, knocking over at least one person in his desperate escape—he was pretty tall after all, even if he wasn't particularly strong—until he finally burst out into one of the dark corners of the club, which was, of course, on the opposite side of the room from the door. Well, the exit door; there were a couple of shady rooms down a hallway to his left that he did _not_ want to know about.

Leaning against one wall, he slid to the floor in a haze of embarrassment and whatever the hell else this was. The annoying voice of his catholic youth insisted it was lust, although there was literally nothing less sexy than the remembered voice of his sunday school teachers reciting deadly sins at him.

His hand clutched at his thigh hard enough to bruise. He should—get up—

he should, 

He shifted, and sparks shot through his body.

It was like some sort of horrible, wonderful dream, one where he was hard and dizzy in the middle of a crowded building and it was Jimmy, of all people, that he wanted, and damnit, his glasses were slipping down his nose.

Fingers brushed the black fabric over his swollen erection, and it took him a moment to realize they weren't his own. He rolled his head to the side and found Jimmy leaning over him with his blown black eyes, strange and avid... He caught Jimmy’s hand as it reached for his zipper, hard grip on the slender fingers. Some selfish voice in his head informed him he was being unbelievably wasteful, he could at least get some friction out of this before Jimmy realized what he was doing, but, breathing hard, he still pulled the hand back.

"What?" Jimmy demanded, genuinely confused.

"No," Edgar replied, knowing that wasn't a proper answer. "No."

Jimmy scowled but, after a tense moment, he retreated, sliding down to sit beside Edgar against the wall. He was silent as Edgar caught his breath, coherency returning a bit at a time. The music went on and the people still danced, but every second moved Edgar farther from them, until it was just him and Jimmy in the whole underworld, sitting in their private dark corner. There was a pervasive sense of disappointment as his hard-on died down bit by bit, but it was for the best. Had he actually entertained the idea of getting off in a room full of _people?_ Jesus Christ, he’d only had one drink. God only knew what Jimmy was thinking about him.

"So..." Jimmy started, eyes on the mass of undulating bodies beyond them, "are you still gonna try'n tell me you aren't gay?"

"I... it's just... with you... and I never..." Edgar swallowed thickly and then went on, "this has never happened before. I mean..."

The younger man snorted. "You aren't interested in women, you watch home improvement shows, you lose your shit when I hit on you, and most importantly, you nearly _came_ from just dancing with me. Me, Jimmy, a guy. What's your argument against _that?"_

Edgar turned his head towards Jimmy just in time to catch a smirk on his lips, and all his resistance crumbled like so much dust in his hands. Well, there went twenty-seven years of carefully guarded privacy. He gave hoarse laugh despite himself. Even now he wasn’t sure what any of it had gained him, except a loneliness so profound that it seemed at times to be indistinguishable from the very air he breathed. “Alright,” he said. “Alright.”

“Coulda just told me,” Jimmy said.

Edgar sighed. “I’ve never told anybody,” he said. “Not in my whole life.”

“Oh. Damn,” Jimmy said. He fixed his gaze over the heads of the crowd, into the flashing void. “How come?”

Edgar’s mouth pressed into a grim line. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was afraid. I don’t know.”

Jimmy nodded slowly. “It’s an ugly old world out there,” he said. “I wouldn’t trust me either, if I knew what was good for me.”

Edgar smiled a tired smile and bumped his shoulder against Jimmy’s. “Nah,” he said. “You’re one of the good ones.”

A roar of delight went up from the floor as the DJ switched tracks, a hundred sparkling glasses as a hundred hands raised their drinks to the ceiling. Jimmy watched them rock together, fixed and distant. “You don’t even know me,” he said.

“Not yet,” Edgar admitted. “But I’d like to.”

Jimmy frowned, but still didn't look at him. He wished he understood. Edgar could only imagine what he was thinking about—the darkness of the world, the darkness of this room? Edgar wasn't sure he believed in the evil that Jimmy seemed to believe in, but for a moment he felt that he recognized a kindred black despair in Jimmy. He had felt it too, in the winter before he died, in the presence of a yet-empty grave that sagged like a wound in the earth. In the florescent light of his own bathroom: a death place, a room of doors all leading to the same uncertain afterlife.

"Are you okay?" Edgar asked.

"I'm fine." Jimmy pushed his limp hair back off his forehead, smearing beads of sweat. “This is gonna sound so fucking fake,” he said, “and I’ll deny it if you _ever_ try to tell anyone I said this, but... I think you may be the nicest guy I ever met. Even if you do want to get in my pants."

Edgar choked at that, but there wasn't really anything he could say, given the situation. He'd set them straight tomorrow, when things had cooled down and he'd had time to work out a credible deflection. God help him, but he really didn't want this to come between them. Jimmy stood up, brushing dust from his pants.

"Your leg..." Edgar said, "it's healed?"

"Mhm. A while now.” He reached down and took Edgar's hand for the second time that night, pulling him to his feet as well. "Where you been the past couple days?"

"Sulking," Edgar answered, feeling very tired indeed. "I thought that maybe I’d overstayed my welcome."

Jimmy's brows went up but he didn't push. He was probably just as tired, if not more. He laughed again, that harsh breath that sounded infinitely more sane than his giggle. At Edgar's questioning look, he explained, "It's just funny this whole episode happened here, tonight."

"Why?"

Jimmy thumped his friend’s forehead with the back of his hand. "This is a gay club. Or, more like a free-for-all don't ask no questions pick-your-poison den of sin. C'mon," he added, pulling Edgar towards the center of the floor, "let's get outta here. Fastest way is through the middle."

Grimly, Edgar set his shoulders. "Once more into the breach, dear friends."

Jimmy's hand was hot and slippery around Edgar’s wrist, but it rested comfortably there, like the natural evolution of its design. Together, they considered the gauntlet ahead of them.

“Don’t be afraid to break some toes if you gotta,” Jimmy warned him, with a glint of satisfaction that would have been worrying if it wasn’t just so very like him. "Because I _will_ leave you behind."

 


	7. The Morning After

"There will be time for you and time for me,  
And time yet for a hundred indecisions  
And for a hundred visions and revisions  
Before the taking of a toast and tea."

-["The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" ](http://people.virginia.edu/~sfr/enam312/prufrock.html)

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

The Morning After

* * *

 

Edgar awoke with his head over the arm of a couch and a crick in his neck. Ouch. There was a pressure on his leg, and as soon as he could actually turn his head—which took a minute—he realized that pressure was Jimmy. It was a miracle they had both managed to fit on the sofa, more so that neither of them had fallen off through the entire night. He tugged his legs back under him and sat up, the movement stirring Jimmy from whatever dream he'd been having. Oops. Edgar was a little rusty at all this.

Jimmy opened one eye rimmed in sleep-smudged eyeliner, took in the situation, and then said quite calmly, "Oh shit."

"Not a morning person?" Edgar said. "You'll feel better if you stretch."

Jimmy groaned, looked like he was going to roll over and bury himself in the cushions, and then froze. "We're both still dressed."

Edgar shrugged. "I don't really own any pajamas, and anyway, I was too tired to change even if I had them." He bent his arms back over his head for a second and then picked himself up, making his way back to the kitchen. He could really go for some coffee. Or tea. Or anything really, to wash out the taste of morning after tequila-tipsy.

"No I mean," Jimmy tried again, "we're _both_ still _dressed_. I think I missed something. Didn't we…"

He looked at Edgar. Edgar looked at him.

"Oh," they both said.

"Jesus Christ, I thought _I_ was the one at the bar," Edgar said, going back to his stowed box of poptarts. "How drunk were _you?"_

"Did I dream that?" Jimmy muttered, tugging back the waistband of his pants. He made a face at something.

"Did you?" Edgar said, eyeing the size of the couch. "I don't know how I ought to feel about that."

Jimmy pinched at his forehead. "I don't get it," he said. "After all that. You didn't want to have sex with me?"

Edgar crossed his arms over the counter, frowning. "Okay, as long as it's all out there in the open anyways, just because there _happens_ to be another man breathing in my vicinity doesn't mean I'm automatically going to have sex with him. Especially not if he's _asleep."_

Jimmy gave him a completely non-comprehending look. "O...kay..."

In spite of himself, Edgar grinned at the look on his face, the puzzled little frown. Jimmy was about as cute as a street animal, a rodent or an alley cat, which was to say, pretty cute when he wasn't just deeply worrying. "Just as long as we're on the same page. Now, have you got anything to eat around here?"

"Nothing but those things," Jimmy said, switching his attention to the pastries, with his usual look of revolted suspicion. "I'm not touching those with a ten foot pole. You do whatever. I'm gonna take a shower."

He brushed a hand through his flattened hair, matted with sweat and old product. He looked like a vision of Hell, to be honest, with his baggy eyes and sallow complexion. As he got up he twisted a thumb in the hem of his shirt and held it down, stumbling off in the direction of the bedroom. Edgar watched him go, nonplussed. There was something weird about that conversation. It had felt like jamming two bundles of wires together, trying to get them to line up. He couldn't help but think there had been some kind of resentment stringing sticky and inexplicable between them. Was it his fault? Had he done something wrong? He'd thought--if Jimmy didn't like men himself then he certainly wasn't _appalled_ by the idea of being with one. But maybe sleeping on the same couch was going too far. He picked nervously at the poptart crust.

When Jimmy came back out into the hall ten minutes later, with a towel slung low across his hips, the whole pile of crumbs Edgar had been trying to move to the garbage disposal fell right out of his hands, forgotten.

Jimmy smirked at him, pleased for some reason, and settled against the doorway. The kitchen lights painted his bird-bone body with an almost glowing chiaroscuro. "Like what you see?" he quipped, flicking a bead of water from his collar bone, stark and sharp under the light.

"Ah…" Best not to answer that. "I was actually looking at those scars…"

Jimmy paused, bringing a hand up to almost touch a particularly dark one along his shoulder. They crisscrossed his side and chest like pearlescent brushstrokes, mostly thin but numerous. One or two looked like they'd healed only weeks before, which translated to two weeks before death, since in the afterlife they put you back together as you had been before whatever killed you started killing you, so to speak. Thank god too, or Edgar would look like a patch-work doll at this point.

Jimmy deflated, crossing his arms now over the majority of the canvas. "Forgot about those."

Edgar brushed the last crumbs from his hands and ducked closer, circling the bemused teen. There were ragged ones and smooth ones, deep ones and shallow. "A lot of these look deliberate."

"Yeah, well. Those heal faster anyways."

"Who?" Edgar asked quietly.

There was a moment of recoil, the cat showing its tiny deadly fangs, and then Jimmy relaxed. He spread his arms, a pointed and mirthless smile on his face, as if to say—I _told_ you I was an open book, didn't I? "A couple different people," he said, a tapping a few of them in succession. "Dad's girlfriend, some kid from tenth grade. The rest are from fights and accidents. Word to the wise? Don't ever jump out a window, especially when you're drunk. It looks like more fun than it is."

Edgar held his gaze for a moment, and he fancied he saw pain deep behind those nearly black eyes, but he wasn't sure, because it was Jimmy, and Edgar was never quite sure of anything around him.

"I was fine when I hit the ground," Jimmy said, as Edgar finally broke eye contact, "the one who really got fucked was Chuey."

Edgar slid back into his seat and picked up his breakfast, acutely aware of Jimmy leaning against the countertops in a way that might have been suggestive if it weren't for the discussion that preceded it. In a lot of ways, he was still the same morally bankrupt, swaggering nineteen-year-old Edgar had met a week or an eternity ago… same snarky attitude, same distrustful eyes... Edgar shook his head. Of course it wasn't Jimmy who had changed, it was only Edgar's understanding of him.

"That friend of yours?" Edgar asked.

"The Darkness doesn't _have_ friends," Jimmy said, picking at the chipping paint on his nails. "Maybe an ally, I guess."

It was sad, Edgar thought, how proud Jimmy sounded of that. It wasn't a badge of honor to be alone in the world. It was exhausting and disheartening. Discrepant as their stories were, Edgar knew what _that_ was like. When he was sixteen his lab partner of two semesters had called him _gary_ in front of the whole class, and no one had even noticed the difference. But while he had turned out to be a relatively stable adult, Jimmy had ended up as... well... Jimmy.

 _There go I, but for the grace of God_.

"An ally against what?" he said. Jimmy hadn't appreciated his sympathy before, and he probably wouldn't appreciate it now either.

"The school," Jimmy sighed, "Life, people, social norm, those stupid fucking cheerleaders with their stupid fucking boyfriends. Parents. Football players who gag you with a jock strap and throw you in their locker--not as erotic as it sounds."

Edgar blinked. "Personal experience?"

"Yeah. Life's just one big clusterfuck, and I got moshed as well as the worst. Every one of 'em was a lying sack of shallow shit. God, I wanted them all dead." Jimmy wasn't looking at him anymore. His eyes were fixed on something only he could see, his lip curling up into a sneer that reminded Edgar of teeth glinting in the darkness, alley trash and dangerous tread. "Sometimes I still wish I'd taken more of them out with me."

 _"More_ of them?"

"Why not?" Jimmy said, missing the point by a mile. "What's the loss? There's nothing inside any of them but garbage. Nothing but-" he gripped his forearms with sharp nails, each of them a different length, "-rotten, cancerous waste."

Edgar eyed the depressions in the flesh under his nails, afraid that at any moment the skin would break. "I feel like I've heard this before," he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else.

Jimmy wasn't paying attention to him anyways. "And there's no such thing as a good person," he said, "or a _nice_ person, or a happy marriage, or a goddamn good Samaritan! Fuck, that Samaritan probably picked the poor Jew's pockets while he was lying on the road. Let me tell you, there's no such thing as innocence! We're all complicit in this- this garbage life- this heaving bloody sphincter of a species-"

"Even you?"

"Of course!" Jimmy spat. He looked at Edgar for the first time since they'd gotten off onto this rocky road, his stare wild and strange. "Look at me! I'm just out to make myself happy, and I don't give a fuck what happens to anyone else on the way! But hell, at least I'm straight about it, unlike every other sick self-deluded bastard on the planet! All of us, out to hurt as much as we've ever been hurt, tear it all apart to find some kind of _satisfaction."_

Edgar gave him a curious sort of look. "So you're counting me in there too?"

Jimmy hesitated there, his animal eyes caught in the headlights of the question. "Don't try to go and make this about you," he muttered.

"Sorry," Edgar said. "I'm just curious, I guess. I mean, I don't _feel_ like a weasel-hearted greedy bastard. On the other hand, I wouldn't, would I?"

Jimmy stared at him. He stared at Jimmy. It was clear that Jimmy had no idea how to respond to that, whether because it was phrased politely, or because Edgar had at one point referred to himself as a weasel. How can you still hope to make yourself happy, he wanted to say, if you honestly believe that's the way of the world? There were so many things Edgar wanted to tell him, to _ask_ him. But they were all lost in the white wash of that silence.

"I should put some pants on," Jimmy sighed, at last. He ran a hand through his freshly washed hair and left it in wet spikes, a floppy cartoon facsimile of his usual style.

All at once Edgar remembered that he was having this conversation with a guy who was as good as naked, and he quickly ducked his head down behind his hand, ears burning. "Definitely," he said.

"Oh please," Jimmy said, pushing off the wall, "you lost your chance to be embarrassed about this, like, ten minutes ago."

Edgar lingered in the kitchen after Jimmy had skulked away. He sucked at his teeth, absently opening cupboards and pulling down mismatched china. This cup had a badly-drawn cartoon of a terrifying dog enameled on the side. He wasn't sure if he ought to leave—it seemed so abrupt, they hadn't even said goodbye, and after a week of ignoring Jimmy to prove a point, he wasn't sure he could just pick up and leave again. He flicked a bit of dust off the bulging eye of the cartoon dog. He'd stay a little longer.

Jimmy stomped out of his room a while later and stopped in his tracked, hands jammed in his pockets, as he passed by Edgar in the kitchenette. After a second, he put his other foot down.

"You're still here," he said, more suspicious than anything else.

"Did you want me to go?" Edgar asked. He had an ugly duck-shaped serving dish balanced in each hand, amid a pile of equally ugly but entirely mismatched kitchenware. 

"No," Jimmy said quickly, and then, "I mean, I don't care. None of my business. What the fuck are you holding?"

Edgar glanced down at his loot. "So you know how when you go into a house for the first time and open up the cabinets, there always seems to be one awful bowl or plate or something left on the top shelf?"

"No," Jimmy said, "on account of I didn't go into random houses and open up the cabinets."

"Neither did I. I moved quite a few times though, didn't you?"

"Oh." Jimmy shrugged, and seemed to lose interest in wherever he had been going before. Instead, he ducked into the kitchen and started rifling through the assortment, poking at the ceramic with such hesitance that it bordered on religious awe. "We lived in the same house my entire childhood."

"You didn't move out for college?"

Jimmy hacked out a laugh and dropped a splotchy yellow pitcher onto the counter. "College!" he said.

Edgar gave his clinking boots and his fishnet gloves a second look, a little embarrassed to be caught in the assumption. "Ah, he said. "Not the college type, I guess."

"College," Jimmy snorted. "I've been homeless since I was seventeen."

"Uh." Edgar felt his ears go hot again. "Were you living...?"

"Out of a car. Duh. Runaways typically can't afford houses on the Westside with white picket fences. Guess I was lucky to have the car at all, I knew some guys who didn't have that either."

"How did you get the car?"

Jimmy pointed at the stack of plates. "Show me where the fuck you're getting that shit, and I'll tell you about it."

So Edgar took his hand and gently lifted it up to the handle of the top-most cabinet, which would have been trickier for anyone shorter than the two of them were, and had him open it. Jimmy's hand jolted at the first touch of skin, but he after a beat he let himself be guided the rest of the way up. When he pulled open the door, there was a cream dispenser shaped like a puking rabbit waiting for him. 

"Seems like it's just one of those things," Edgar said. "You know, like how any tape left in a car for more than a month turns out to be a best of Queen album? If you open an empty cabinet above eye-level there's always an ugly dish at the back."

"Oh," Jimmy said. "Cool."

Jimmy started to sort out the plates splayed across the counter and stack them up into the lower shelves as he told the story of the car. He'd run out on his parents after they'd had an argument, he said. It had been about college, and money, but mostly it had been about the car that Mr. Euridge had bought for his son the year before. It had been a sweet sixteen gift, for passing his driver's test, but as soon as he'd gotten it he'd spent every minute he could manage out of the house, crashing with friends or partying until it was too late to come home. And then, six months later, he'd gotten pulled over for reckless driving at 3 am going the wrong way on a one-way street, and--well, you can always decline to take the breathalyzer test, but they'll suspend your license, and what do you do with the car that you can't drive anymore now that you've had your license suspended? Carmella, the stepmother, had ended up driving it. And she'd taken a liking to it. And once the suspension was up, she hadn't wanted to give it back.

"So I go slamming into my room like I always do, 'cause I'm fuckin' pissed off and it's the last straw, and I sit there and I think, this is what it's gonna be like until I get a degree, and that's what? Four years? I decide that this ain't gonna cut it. Am I gonna live under that bitch's thumb for another four years? Hell no! Figured I could get a working job somewhere, maybe work with metal. I've always been good with my hands." He held out his hands as if to prove the point.

Edgar nodded again, and Jimmy went on: the money in his father's wallet, the spare key to the car, the sound of the radio as he flew down the road at four in the morning with the home of his childhood in the rear window (Edgar feels a thrum of that excitement as Jimmy describes it, an echo of one last pure moment). He talked about the first weeks of living on his own, sleeping in the parking lots of hotels, and then the ugly time when the money had run out, and then the theft—he always talked about that with pride—and the job at the CD store where they didn't care if he slept sometimes in the back room as long as he showed up for work sober.

He was sitting on the counter now, passing the dustier bowls and teapots to Edgar who had started to wash them in the sink, the heels of his boots kicking absently at the wood paneling. He talked about the crew he'd partied with, and the smell of the basement where they all went to get drunk off everclear and diet coke, the way he'd built himself a nest in the backseat of his car out of clothes and blankets from the Goodwill donation bin so he wouldn't have to sleep on the seatbelt buckles, the long nights, the bus station, the way the sky turned the color of a wound when you took too much of whatever Fish was handing out to sleep through the dawn. He talked about violence. He talked about hope.

Edgar listened to it all with a growing feeling of something like awe. It wasn't the story itself—mostly that was just sad, and sometimes confusing. It wasn't just that Jimmy had deigned to tell it, because if one thing was true about Jimmy it was that he loved to talk. He wasn't sure what it was. All he knew was that although Jimmy never said the word "lonely", Edgar recognized it like the familiar streets that ran underneath every moment of the story. There but for the grace of god... but what could grace be if not this moment of communion? 

"And that's what I was doing," Jimmy said, "when he killed me."

Edgar paused, a bowl suspended in his hands under the faucet. He hadn't known Jimmy was murdered too. "Who?" he asked, but even then he was thinking- in our city, who else?

Jimmy gave him the shifty eye and pushed off the counter, saying, "That's enough storytelling for one morning, don't you think?"

Edgar nodded, slowly.

"Come on," Jimmy said. "I'm picking up some cigarettes. You can walk with me if you promise not to embarrass me in front of the other weirdos."


	8. Sweet Ignorant Bliss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tick off a bingo box for this fic's first mention of sexual assualt

[Because I want to forget, oh yes I _need_ to forget,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcaKh1lTaq8)  
[ that nothing good can ever happen when I trust people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcaKh1lTaq8)

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Sweet Ignorant Bliss

 

* * *

 

Edgar stood at the shelf of a 7/11, amazed that he could still be disappointed by things at this stage in his existence, but as it turned out, the underworld didn't offer _anything_ that might make a positive difference in the life of the damned, moon pies included. That was disappointing, but then, so was finding Jimmy in the middle of threatening the management with a knife.

The first thing Edgar heard was, "Your money or your life, pencil-dick." The second thing he heard was, "Ow! Who the fuck threw that?"

Edgar swung around the display of Jalapeno Vinegar Chips stacked higher than his head, with an apologetic wave at the clerk. "I'll pay for that ginger ale," he said, gesturing at the plastic bottle that had bounced off Jimmy's head and rolled under the desk.

Jimmy swore a blue streak at Edgar, rubbing furiously at his scalp. Edgar fished the ginger ale back out and held his hand open towards Jimmy, waiting. "What did you want?" he said.

"I wanted fucking _money,"_ Jimmy said.

"Well that fucking money isn't yours," Edgar said. "What were you going to buy with it? It's alright sir," he said, to the wary clerk, "you can ring us up together. Jimmy, just get a beer and put it on the counter."

There was a sullen pause, and then Jimmy stomped back into the freezer and came out with an arm full of mismatching beer cans, like he'd just swiped everything in reach.

"Okay," Edgar said, counting under his breath, "that's... seven total... and a soda of course."

"And one of those," Jimmy said, jerking his chin defiantly at something in the case behind the counter. At first Edgar took it for a case of lottery tickets (Commute Your Sentence! One Lucky Winner Every Millennia! Get Out of Hell Free), but upon closer inspection they seemed to just be rolls of colorful stickers.

"What?" Edgar said.

The clerk turned and followed their gaze. "Oh," he said. "Limited edition Filler Bunny Fun Packs. The devil's kid goes fucknuts crazy for 'em, so we all gotta keep 'em stocked." He popped open the case and set one down on the table. It was worth an outrageous amount of money.

Edgar shot Jimmy a look. Jimmy glared back.

"Alright," Edgar said. "One of those please."

A few moments later, the two of them stood with their shopping bags in hand outside of the store. Thunder was practically cracking over Jimmy's head.

"I can't believe you threw a soda at me," he said.

"Consider it payback," Edgar said, with a dour look. "I can't believe you actually said _your money or your life._ What is this, a gangland biopic? How in the world were you planning on carrying through with that threat?"

Jimmy shrugged aggressively, aluminum cans clinking. "Always worked before."

"Consider updating your approach." Then Edgar winced, rethinking his advice. "On second thought, consider a completely different approach. You don't need to steal to survive here."

"How am I supposed to look cool if I don't rob anybody?"

Edgar gave him a withering look. "You could try actually _being_ cool, for one thing."

Jimmy stared at him. And then, like he was trying not to and failing, he started laughing into his paper bags. "Fuck," he said. "You better watch your ass or I'll just skip the middle man and rob _you_ next time."

Edgar turned back to the road and let out a long suffering sigh. " _C'est la vie,"_ he said _._  "Er… _mors_ … or something." He reached over and plucked one of the cans from Jimmy's armful of bags, and admitted, "I've never actually taken a French class."

 

 

Edgar, who wasn't quite certain what was going on, only that he rather liked it, spent most of the indeterminable days wandering about Hell and meeting interesting (if not very nice) people. The living room got painted, and he and Jimmy discussed just about everything under the sun—they disagreed on about half of it—except for the one thing that Jimmy really wanted to know, and Edgar really didn't want to talk about. By the third time Edgar completely changed the subject from his unfortunate former life, he was starting to get the feeling that Jimmy was only humoring him so far.

On the fifth day, someone brought up the question of good and evil.

Jimmy had slung himself over the side of his sofa, as per usual. He seemed to end up with his feet over the back more often than the reverse. He snorted. "Dude, aren't you basically an angel?"

"Emphatically _no_. I don't know where people got the idea that dead humans turn into angels after they die, but it's patently ridiculous. Completely different species." He eyed Jimmy, over his shoulder. "Besides, wouldn't that make you a demon by the same token?"

"Ding ding ding," Jimmy said, with a full set of ironic jazz hands. "So what's the point of debating good and evil if _you're_ good and _I'm_ evil?"

"I don't believe that," Edgar said firmly.

"What?" Jimmy's brows went up. "That I'm evil or you're good?"

Edgar paused, momentarily perplexed, and then replied, "The evil part. I don't think you're evil, not really. I mean, no offense, but you had to have mucked things up pretty badly to end up here. Still… not evil."

"You," Jimmy insisted, pointing a stiff finger at Edgar's face, "have no idea what my life was like. What I've done. What I _wanted_ to do. What I _got away_ with."

Edgar had known a lot of people with dire opinions about guilt and goodness, and more often than not he'd seen those opinions come back to bite those people in the ass. Edgar had his own convictions. He believed that there was justice, in the long run, and that all living things eventually reaped what they sew. He believed that there was sin, and that there was forgiveness. But he had never believed in Evil, with a capital E, and he had never believed that there was a single sharp line dividing the darkness from the light.

Even Nny, in his pit of human suffering, Edgar hadn't had the means to hate. There was injustice, and there would be punishment. It was out of his hands to say when or how the price would be exacted. That was faith.

"Is there something you want to confess?" Edgar said.

"What are you, my priest? Fuck off."

"I'm only saying," Edgar went on, "if I'm so good and you're so evil, why would I waste my time on a lost cause?"

"Oh, so I'm a cause?" Jimmy sniped. Edgar recognized this sort of thing. Jimmy didn't want to talk so he decided to argue. It was a dead end to follow that comment too deep.

"No," he replied mildly, "it's a figure of speech. Anyway, how do you know if you're evil or not?"

"I'm a crook," Jimmy answered simply. "The extent of my… crookage is none of your business. Let's just leave it at that, yeah?"

"But-"

"I don't wanna talk about it! God, why do you want to _talk_ about everything? There are some things that just don't need to be discussed."

Edgar frowned. "You do a lot of talking yourself."

Jimmy removed his head from where it was buried under a pillow and sneered. "Yeah, but _I_ talk about the important stuff."

"Oh, right. The important stuff. Like drinking and cars and knives and me being gay?"

Jimmy grinned. "I knew you could be taught."

And maybe he forgot about the conversation, but Edgar didn't. Edgar didn't forget at all.

 

 

On the seventh day, Jimmy insisted they go out to a restaurant—in the loosest sense of the term, of course.

"See," he said, sitting on the kitchen counter, "it's been, like, two weeks or something and you still don't hate me. That's gotta be some kind of record."

"That's a pretty dismal record," Edgar replied, "and I'm not certain I want to be a part of it."

Jimmy jumped off the countertop and swung an arm around Edgar's shoulder, invading personal space with his typical disregard for anyone's comfort besides his own. "Yeah, well, you don't have much choice. We're going out to lunch if I have to drag you on a leash."

Edgar rolled his eyes. "Save it for your weird clubs," he sighed, pulling away, "Just let me get my guest pass, okay? I don't want another _hounds of Hell_ episode."

Between Jimmy running back for another layer of eyeliner and Edgar forgetting his shoes, somehow they finally managed to get out the door and onto the street. There were no hounds in sight, hellish or otherwise. Edgar breathed a secret sigh of relief. He hadn't been a big fan of dogs even when he was alive, but the monsters they kept down here absolutely gave him the willies.

Jimmy eyed the road distastefully. "See, this is why we need a car. We're always walking everywhere and I'm _tired_ of it. The guys at the club think it's hilarious, and if there's one thing you don't want it's those losers deciding you're low man on the totem pole."

"You can't afford a car," Edgar repeated for the umpteenth time. "You don't even have enough money for… well, anything. How are we paying for lunch, anyway?"

"I've got some stashed away for this sorta thing. And I wouldn't buy the car, I'd steal it. Fish showed me how a few months before I died, and I'm pretty good. I only got caught the first time I tried it. Besides, there's no police in Hell."

Edgar tilted his head and mouthed a hello to Al, who was giving them a benignly nosey stare from high above, then looked back at Jimmy. "That was the time you got arrested, then?"

"Yeah," Jimmy said, looking pleased.

"…But…" Edgar stopped walking, "without parents to post bail, how did you…"

"Oh," Jimmy shrugged, waving a hand, "I never actually went to jail or anything."

Before Edgar could ask how he managed _that_ —which he was dying to know—a very pretty girl bumped into Jimmy and thoroughly distracted them both. She looked back and forth between the two of them, and Edgar was suddenly conscious of what a weird pair they were. Or maybe they were an extremely apt pair, and she was only having trouble deciding who to talk to first. The girl smiled sweetly, resting her attention at last on Jimmy.

"Hi," she said, clasping her hands in front of her in a way that made her cleavage rather obvious, which _might_ have been accidental on her part, but Edgar doubted it. "Can you tell me which way the Aberzombie is? I'm recently deceased and…"

Jimmy eyed her endowments with an intensity that made Edgar want to slap him into the other side of tomorrow. "Well, I'm not what you'd call familiar with that side of town, but I think I could help you out."

"Oh good!" she squealed, grabbing the boy's hand and making to drag him off.

Edgar grabbed his other hand and whispered, "You do not _know_ where the god damn Aberzombie is."

"Chill," Jimmy said, shaking him off. "I'll be like five minutes. I just gotta give some _instructions._ "

"More like make out for ten minutes. Do we have plans or _don't_ we?"

The girl watched the exchange with impatient disinterest as Jimmy stepped back and wrapped an arm around her side. "What do _you_ care?" he said. His black-rimmed eyes narrowed. "You can just go ahead, can't you?"

They sauntered off, hooking a left and disappearing behind the brickwork of an abandoned motel. Edgar seethed. What did he care? Well for one thing, how fucking rude was a move like that. And lunch had been _Jimmy's_ idea. Sure, Jimmy was all excited to hang out with him, but only until some attractive set of mammary glands walked by, apparently. And what was a girl like that doing with a guy like Jimmy anyways? Edgar was no expert, but the types of girls who were interested in eyeliner and fishnets generally was limited to rocker groupies and goths, neither of which Aberzombie Girl appeared to be.

Was he being petty about being ditched? Probably. But it wasn't like he had anything else to do until Jimmy came back.

So Edgar seethed, digging pebbles from the mortar with his nails and feeling very inhospitable to the entire female gender for about ten minutes. And then in a rapid fire patter of boots on the concrete, Jimmy came flying back around the corner.

"Go go go go go!" he said, snatching at Edgar's hand as he whipped by. Edgar startled into motion, more worried about being left behind than whatever Jimmy was running from. They pounded through a narrow side street and emerged into the milling sidewalk traffic around the beeper emporium, ducking under bewildered midday shoppers on their way to an alley gate which Jimmy scaled in nearly a single leap, like a lizard. Edgar stopped, dumfounded, and stared through the gate at him.

"Hurry _up,_ " Jimmy said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Edgar looked up and down the iron gate, trying to figure out where Jimmy had put his feet that he could just pop over it vertically like that. He wasn't even a full ten years older, but he felt like a septuagenarian watching a preteen backflip off a diving board. He carefully reached over to the lock and pulled it free, and walked through the easily opened door. Then he locked it behind them.

"Okay," he said, "maybe now you can tell me what we're running from? Are we having another _hounds of hell_ episode?" 

Jimmy grabbed hold of the gate and rattled it for good measure, watching the padlock intently. When he was satisfied that it was closed tight, he slunk back and stomped away, not waiting to see if Edgar was with him or not. It was such a bizarre departure from the moment before that Edgar half wondered if he'd hallucinated the whole thing. "Um," he started, jogging after his friend.

"-Fucking believe this,"  Jimmy was muttering, shoulders hunched as he kicked his way deeper into the alley. "The fucking _balls-"_

"Hey," Edgar said, "hey Jimmy, what's your problem?"

"I let my _fucking_ guard down," Jimmy snapped, "that's my problem. Chicks. God, what a joke. They look pretty, but when you get down to it they're just as ugly as I am. Uglier even. All the fucking same. That's what I get for forgetting I'm in Hell, stupid fucking me. Forgot that people are shitty through and through."

Edgar put a hand on Jimmy's shoulder, which was immediately shrugged off. "What are you talking about?"

"Same old thing," Jimmy said, fists clenching. "Honey trap shit, some bitch and her boyfriend. Guy wants to look tough for his chick, of course he beats up the twiggy goth kid. They all think they're so fucking strong and the girlfriends're worse because they actually _believe_ it, and I'd bet money that stunt was her idea. Vicious bitches, every one of 'em."

It took Edgar a second to parse that. "So you... _weren't_ making out with that girl."

The half a second of sheer boiling exasperation Jimmy glared at him made Edgar feel like a salted slug, clumsy and withered.

"…Are you okay?"

"Fuck you," Jimmy growled, "It's all your fault."

"Mine?" Edgar echoed, taken aback.

"Yeah, yours. If you weren't so fucking... I wouldn't have… I woulda been prepared… I mean, what do you think you're…"

Edgar pulled him to a stop and turned him around, holding him still to check for signs of injury. Jimmy took the manhandling in silence, fuming as he stared a hole in the brickwork. Edgar checked his face for marks (clear, except for the usual spots) and then his clothes, prodding gently at the skin and bones underneath for anything that made Jimmy wince or twitch. He seemed fine, more ego-bruised than actually bruised. He was a slippery customer, for sure. Edgar was beginning to see how he'd managed to escape so many close encounters with the law.

"I'll be sure to be less like myself in the future," Edgar said, drawing back.

Jimmy scowled and turned away, effectively hiding his face. "Fuck you," he repeated, "That's not what I meant."

Edgar tugged on his companion's arm, directing them both towards the original destination. If he was going to let this sort of thing deter him, he would have given up weeks ago and been done with it. Jimmy was just… complicated. But he always bounced back.

"Good," Edgar replied serenely, "because while I'd do a lot of things for you, I have to admit that would be kind of fucked."

Jimmy rubbed at his arms, flattening the wrinkles in his jacket where Edgar had touched him. They emerged into another street, in a completely different part of town, on a completely different part of the map. this surprised neither of them. The truth was, Edgar didn't know what to say to his friend. That was a scary thing, to be lured off and threatened, and not incidentally something that had frightened Edgar at the back of his mind since the first time he noticed another boy in the showers.

They walked in silence for a while, fending off the souls of newly passed hobos and generally ignoring the usual comments that strangers shouted in their direction. Edgar could tell it was harder for Jimmy, but he managed.

"I still hate chicks," Jimmy sighed, tucking fishnet-clad hands into pockets.

"That's a bad attitude," Edgar remarked. "They aren't _all_ scheming to bring about your downfall."

"Yeah?" Jimmy snorted. "You don't think _anyone's_ all bad. You have terrible judgment."

"I do not," Edgar shot back, miffed.

Jimmy cupped a hand around his ear, leaning into an imagined conversation. "What?" he said, "Who, Edgar? Yeah, nice guy, _baaad_ judge of character." He turned back to his companion, "That's what people say about you, I guarantee it."

"Shows what you know," Edgar muttered, "people don't talk about me at all."

Jimmy waved a dismissive hand. "Shows what _you_ know. I know for a fact that I talk about you."

For his part, Edgar nearly tripped. "You talk about me?" he sputtered. "What… what do you say?"

"Pretty much what I just said," the younger man shrugged, "except sometimes I throw in 'ditz' or 'virgin', just for spice."

Edgar actually tripped that time. "You tell them _what_?" he gasped from a rather uncomfortable position on the ground. "I am not! And anyways, there'd be nothing wrong with it if I was."

"Uh-huh." Jimmy looked doubtful. "I find that hard to believe."

"Which part?"

"Either of 'em," he replied, offering Edgar a hand up—which was an oddly considerate gesture for him. Edgar took hold, pulling himself out of a sprawl and to his feet. Up ahead, Edgar spotted the Mexican restaurant where he and Jimmy had their dramatic encounter weeks before. He could still feel the lump that wine bottle gave him if he thought about it for too long. It was still a bit of a mystery why Jimmy had been up there in the first place…

"Well, I have… you know… when I was in college…" Edgar managed. Just for safe measure, he added, "a woman."

"And she was a bitch, right?" Jimmy said triumphantly, displaying an unusual stretch of the attention span. "As soon as you fucked her, she turned into a bitch."

Edgar winced. "No, and I wish you wouldn't say it like that. She was perfectly reasonable, once she sobered up."

Jimmy didn't look away from the street ahead, but you could almost feel his attention zeroing in, like a horse flicking its ears towards a new and interesting sound. "Oh, _really_ ," he said, packing so much implication into two syllables that the lascivious intent absolutely dripped off them. _"Details_. Immediately."

The door was right in front of them now, and Edgar was now stuck with the uncomfortable choice of discussing the night he lost his virginity in the middle of the street or in a tex-mex restaurant. Oh boy.

"Um…" he grabbed Jimmy's arm and pulled them behind a dumpster where—hopefully—no one would listen in on the—again, hopefully—short conversation. "Look, it sounds bad like that, but it was only that we were at this party..."

"You?" Jimmy said. "At a party?"

Edgar felt his ears flush red. "I was really only invited because I'd done the host a favor a while before—"

"What _kind_ of favor?"

"And I wandered over to the drinks, because I can't dance—"

"That ain't what I remember."

"And there was this girl who was really drunk, and she said I reminded her of an actor in this movie _Zeitgeist..."_

"I saw a commercial for that!"

"And she took me upstairs to one of the bedrooms, and I'd had a bit to drink myself, actually, and then…"

"What?"

"Well, I guess," Edgar said, "she pushed me down and, I don't remember much, honestly I can't believe I," he hid his mouth behind his fist, scaldingly embarrassed but unable to stop explaining now that he'd gotten this far, "that I got it up, I wasn't very into it for--you can imagine reasons, it wasn't my idea."

Jimmy gave him a disbelieving look. " _That_ was how you had sex? A girl _raped_ you?"

"No!" Edgar shouted, alarmed. "I mean, I didn't instigate…"

The glare softened into something that looked almost like pity, if you didn't know Jimmy very well. "And you didn't like it, and you didn't like her."

Edgar tugged at his sleeves, feeling again like a clumsy salted slug. "She was perfectly nice," he said again, "once she sobered up."

Jimmy drew his lips back in a sneer. "Call it what it was, man."

"That's," Edgar said, "a lot to put on someone who didn't mean any harm-"

Jimmy watched him intently, his black-smeared eyes barely blinking. There was some complex math going on back there that Edgar couldn't even begin to fathom. "Figures that your first time would be non-consensual," he said, "You _look_ like a rape victim."

It seemed to Edgar that this was something he should find insulting, and was alarmed to discover that he wasn't insulted by it at all. Alarmed and uncomfortable? Yes. And the look Jimmy was giving him—transformed again, now into something very intense—was really not helping.

"I don't know why you're so obsessed with rape," Edgar muttered, the 'r' word sounding unwieldy and awkward on his tongue.

He'd certainly undergone his share of sensitivity training, not to mention the usual array of psych courses before that, but there was something deeply off-putting and inexplicably different about a conversation this personal, this intimate.

"It's a fact of life," Jimmy said at last, looking as if he had really wanted to say something else.

"…Yes," Edgar agreed, and then trying to brighten the mood, "but _we're_ dead."

Jimmy watched him another beat, and then clapped his hands together, dispelling the very darkness of the air with a flash of chipped nail polish. "And on that note, let's eat."

Following Jimmy's lead, Edgar stepped out of the alley and swung into the giant taco-shaped building. The décor was cheap and tacky and the service was sullen, but if you can't take the heat then you'd better get out of the underworld—as the popular wisdom went. The tacos were good, and that was the thing that mattered.

The boy at the cash register gave Jimmy a horrible dirty look, and Edgar something that unnervingly bordered on pity, which caused the older man to stumble over his order in a rather embarrassing way.

"Have you noticed that about half the people down here hate you on sight?" asked a perturbed Edgar, swiping his order off the questionably clean countertop.

"I think it'd be hard to miss," his companion retorted. "Though I'm a little surprised _you_ noticed."

Edgar slid into a booth, followed by Jimmy, and sighed. "It just makes me nervous. I'm always worried that somebody is going to do something horrible to you while I'm not here."

The younger man rolled his eyes. "One," he held up one finger, "I don't think you'd make much of a difference in a fight, except as a casualty. And two," he held up a second finger, "anyone who can get me on the ground would have to be a force to reckon with."

Edgar was about to counter that point with some commentary on his height and weight, and possibly a lecture on mob psychology, when the white flash of a sheet of paper under the table distracted him. He picked it up, squinting to read it through the layer of dirty shoe-prints.

"Looks like it's written in blood," Jimmy offered, in an offhand sort of way. "Written in _cold_ blood," he amended, apparently liking the sound of it better.

Edgar rolled his eyes at the dramatics. Though it _did_ look rather suspiciously rusty brown.

" _When the eye burneth_ —that's old English, I suppose— _and the night turn dark, every citizen of Hell if invited to a_ … I assume that's 'party'… _to commemoratte the falling of Adam and Eeve—_ well really now— _sharl be held at Pandemmonium, currently located unto thee just east of every city. Dimm personagef are not expected to attend unless they shall be prepared for the bating of bear—_ that's just barbaric _—and the Grieslie King shall laugh at mortal any foolishe enough to find themmselves lost in hif palace for all eternity. That meanf most of you. Verily, stay off the fancy rugf."_

Edgar squinted a little closer at the page. "Are all these F's _supposed_ to be here?"

"Condescending a little, ain't it?" Jimmy mused around a bite of taco.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Edgar replied, automatically. "But I concede the point. This reeks of the Devil's handiwork."

"Is that supposed to be-" Jimmy swallowed, "-some kind of catholic code?"

"No, I mean it literally sounds like the devil wrote it," Edgar said. He set the paper back down on the table, wiping his fingers off surreptitiously on his jeans. "We met when I first arrived. He's apparently got some kind of an interest in me, god only knows why."

"Huh," said Jimmy, trying and mostly failing not to look impressed. "Had a moment with 'im myself, y'know, back when we had that satanic ritual. Thought it was some kinda chemically induced hallucination from the burning Ouija board at the time."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'You? Oh, He's just going to _love_ this.'"

"Odd."

"Yeah."

"Pass the tabasco, please."


	9. Whose Hurt Matters More?

The mind is its own place, and in it self,

Can make a Hell of Heav'n, or a Heav'n of Hell.

-John Milton, _Paradise Lost_.

 **Eternity in a Pickle Jar**  

 **** ****Our Hurt Matters More

* * *

 

It was time to do something about the wardrobe. Now, if he was gonna do it at all.

He had three outfits, total. He kept them in a shopping bag under his fold out chair, and he changed into them in the room behind the registration desk, which had no discernable purpose anyways. The rules of Hell didn't seem to apply to him, as he never got dirty or greasy, even though there was nowhere for him to take a shower or wash his clothes. It was very strange.

Edgar held up the purple t-shirt he'd planned to change into, a little afraid of its demonstrable power. It was so… tight. And… what had Jimmy said? 'Provocative'? Well, he supposed it had provoked enough people, although not in the way Jimmy had meant it. He'd been shouted at and snubbed many, many more times than he'd been hit on, which wasn't to say he  _hadn't_ been hit on, or that being hit on in public wasn't frightening enough for a man like him...

He really needed some different clothes. His old oxfords and button-downs, and plain, baggy tees. No one would stop him in the street and call him a fag in _those_ clothes, no one would probably even look at him. He could have peace again. It was hard to imagine peace down here.

He glanced around at the field of blissing souls, all glaze-eyed and zombiefied, totally unaware of him. They were like strange fleshy plants sprouting from the dirt, a crop more than a flock. If only his old pastor could see _this_.

It was time for serious consideration. It was time to make an honest evaluation. If he hated these clothes so much, why did he keep wearing them? If he hated the attention, why didn't he go back to the way he was before? If he had liked being invisible so much, then why had he been so lonely?

One summer a very long time ago, Edgar had had a girlfriend for a shortlived couple of weeks. They'd gone to a pool one afternoon, and he'd been so embarrassed to walk around in a swim suit. Tara—that was her name—had dithered about, staring at the water and then dragging him off for ice-cream, and then staring at the water again. He'd asked her why she didn't just jump in, and she said something about cold water and not wanting to ruin her hair. And then she stared again.

Finally, as she'd finished her fourth circuit around the edge of the pool, one of her friends had crept up behind her and pushed. And when Tara came up for air, she hadn't been angry at all—in fact, she'd looked thrilled, and she had proceeded to ignore Edgar for the rest of the afternoon. As he sat on the bench, watching the grand old time splashing it up without him, it occurred to him that she'd wanted someone to push her in the whole time. She hadn't had the guts to jump in, so she'd pined and brooded until someone had enough and shoved her in. He'd though it was weird at the time—

He remembered the shape of Jimmy's hand in his hand, Jimmy dragging him onto the dance floor as he struggled to get free. He'd _wanted_ to dance. He'd _always_ wanted to dance. Why had he fought against it?

Well there you are then, he thought. Edgar Vargas was a dithering loser without the cojones to take responsibility for what he really wanted. It was so much safer to be able to point at someone else and say,  _it's not my fault I'm failing, it was his idea._ He could have bought a new set of clothes any time in the last month. He wasn't so afraid of department stores that he couldn't have sucked it up and pulled a tshirt off the rack somewhere.

But was he even failing? Edgar smoothed wrinkle out of the dark fabric. At least he was doing something different from his miserable first life. At least people were seeing him. Maybe it was pathetic that he was willing to take being shouted at in public if it meant being noticed, but maybe he was entitled to be little bit pathetic if he wanted to. 

So suck it up and buy new clothes, or accept that he actually kind of liked the ones he had?

Maybe he was just a sucker for pain, but honestly, he liked the way these pants fit him.

 

 

 

"Well, think about it like this," Edgar said. "We're both here in the same room, aren't we?"

The light falling through the window was growing heavier and darker, throwing red shadows across the unfinished concrete. Jimmy sank into the thin cushions, scowling. "Yeah."

"And yet, only one of us is damned. I'm in Hell, but I'm not _in_ Hell, you see? So it only seems to reason that you'd be just a badly off in or out of Heaven."

Jimmy glared at him. Edgar stared back. It was another evening, another silent battle of wills and stubbornness. Usually Jimmy won these, since Edgar couldn't muster up the conviction to really hold his ground, but this was one argument he was determined to win. They had been talking about Dante. Edgar had _strong_ opinions about Dante.

Jimmy must have sensed the resolve. "Okay, fine." He held his hands up in surrender. "But I don't really see why."

"A person's sins weigh down on them," Edgar explained. "I think, deep down, most people know they're doing the wrong things. Since all that's holding us together here is our souls and our memories, the things you've done are right on the surface where you can't ignore them. You have to live with it every day, and think about it when you're alone, and the way things are set up around here, normally, you're pretty much always alone. You and I are the exception."

Jimmy made a face. "Being alone ain't so bad."

"They do say Hell is other people," Edgar agreed, thoughtfully. "But I wonder if that's really true. I know I've never been as miserable with you as I was when I was alive and alone..."

There was a beat of silence, and the creak of a cushion. Edgar looked up to find Jimmy watching him strangely, his brows knotted together. Edgar flushed under the scrutiny. 

"I just have this feeling," he pushed on, nervously, "I'm sure you know what I mean, right? Everybody down here is alone, desperately clinging to the things they cared about in life. You know, cars, women, clothes… but it doesn't ever satisfy them. Nothing can ever satisfy the hole they've made in themselves."

Jimmy looked at him for a long time, until the silence began to grow heavy and uncomfortable. 

"…I'm sorry," Edgar said, "was that too much?"

Jimmy put up a pale imitation of his usual sneer, bloodless and toothy. "Nah," he said, "just wondered how long you were gonna go on about satisfying holes."

"Uh huh," Edgar said. "Well, you just tell me if I'm wrong."

Jimmy shrugged, but it had a prickly sharpness to it. "You think you're a real Sigmund Freud," he said (talking right over Edgar's horrified, "I certainly do not"), "But you still haven't figured me out, so you can't be all that great."

"How do you know I haven't?" Edgar asked, because it would be too mean-spirited to ask Jimmy if he actually knew who Sigmund Freud was.

"Please. You still don't get half of my innuendos, and you haven't asked about my knives, and most important _you're still here._ You wouldn't be if you'd figured me out."

You have an awfully low opinion of yourself, Edgar thought. It made Edgar dizzy sometimes to hear the egotistical self-aggrandizement in one sentence immediately followed by the most bitterly casual self-depreciation, often in the same sentence, often in the same breath. It was more anger than depression, but more loathing than acceptance. It made his head hurt and his heart ache. Or maybe the other way around.

"Well, you're a very complicated person," Edgar said, because how else could he put it. "And I assure you that nothing you could tell me would make me leave you now."

Jimmy mumbled something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like _married._ Then he went on, "Okay, whatever. Don't blame me for the rest of it, I tried to warn you."

"Dully noted."

It wasn't that Edgar never wondered what Jimmy had done to earn himself a house on Hell's least popular block, it was just that it didn't seem to matter in the life they lived now. Probably Jimmy had murdered someone. Maybe more than one person. Edgar wasn't so wrapped up in himself that he was unaffected by the concept of murder. But everything seemed so impermanent now--on the other side of the veil, immortal being stripped of mortal flesh, in the relentless light of eternity. Murder was a temporary experience. Edgar had gotten over his own. He didn't see why, in the long run, other people might not get over theirs.

Jimmy sunk back into the sofa, and Edgar leaned against the wall. Perhaps he should think about getting a chair? Not that he minded sitting on the floor, but it did give Jimmy and unfair advantage, what with—

"Is there something you oughta be warning  _me_ about?" Jimmy asked, pulling Edgar abruptly out of his thoughts.

"Warning you?" Edgar repeated, dumbly.

"Some big dark secret that makes you so chill about everything you see down here," Jimmy clarified. It was hard to tell if he was joking. "What's your grisly backstory, dude?"

"My life was perfectly bland," Edgar said. Maybe a little too quickly.

"The hell it was," Jimmy snorted. "You already told me all about that curse of yours—I ain't felt anything particularly unlucky yet—and you clam up every time I bring up suicide, which, okay, isn't that weird, but it's still more than you being some stick-in-the-mud Christian, I just know it."

What do you say to that perfectly accurate summation? Edgar sighed. "You've got the wrong idea."

"No, I don't think I do," Jimmy said. "And since we're having this serious discussion, I think it's time you fessed up. Y'know, so we're even. I did my bit."

Edgar was all fought out. Really. He would have at least held his own if he was fresh, but by now…

He thought all at once of the pool and the nightclub and his stupid shirts. Anyway. Maybe he just wanted to tell somebody about it, finally.

"What do you want to know?" he said, falling backwards and laying on the carpet with one arm over his face.

"Dude, don’t ask _me_. I just want the story."

"You’re unconscionably nosy," Edgar accused. He was still looking up into the thread count of his sleeve.

But Jimmy only said, "Start at the beginning."

So Edgar started at what he thought was the beginning.

Three years before Johnny murdered him, Edgar had graduated from college with a degree in psychology and a minor in education. A school in town was having problems about the same time, a rash of suicides across its gleaming exterior of efficiency. Parents were withdrawing students, which meant funds, which meant paychecks. The school board was pressuring them to do something about the  _sterile and unsupportive atmosphere._ They put out an advertisement for a child psychologist. 

Edgar was a man with more debt than dollars and a willingness to take any salary above the poverty line.

They hired Edgar without even meeting him, snapping up the first resume on the pile, not realizing that their choice was a twenty-five year old with no work experience. They didn't much care when they found out, though, as Edgar Vargas was an agreeable man who followed directions to the T, and really they had only hired him to appease the nervous parents. And so, Mr. Vargas became the school psychiatrist.

It was easy to see what the problem with the school was, once he was inside. High school had been miserable enough for him in his own day, but the Academy had decided that the best way to sharpen young minds was to grind them down to a depersonalized analytical nub. There were no art clubs, no photography classes, no marching band even--Edgar had to wheel and deal just to get a brainbowl team approved. Living in that fishbowl of a school was like being run through a machine, and it ground down even harder on anyone who tried to make a little room for themselves. 

He couldn't bear to watch it go on. Intro to Psych classes swallowed his days, and more and more, Breakfast Club swallowed his evenings. One night he looked up to find his office crowded with teenage outcasts, each of them someone he had consoled or encouraged or simply invited to linger a little longer, in peace. It was as if his silent wish for more (for better, for what they  _deserved_ ) had drawn them all into his orbit, safe in the gravity of his approval but still far away, too far for him to reach. It made his heart ache to watch them. They perched on tables and traded CDs and laughed, rarely speaking to him but always waiting for him, caught in a moment that he could do nothing but fiercely guard in the secret space of a dark classroom. 

What could he do for them except let them be kids, for a few hours a day?

After working there for long enough to have gotten his hopes up, two things of importance happened. One: Edgar met Damon, a smart kid with a passion for books he disagreed with. A strange sort of friendship grew, and Edgar found himself spending as much time with the kid as he could reasonably arrange, eventually meeting up with him outside of school. Damon wanted to show someone the little coffee shop behind the mall. Edgar wanted to see Damon do something besides cram for the SATs with his legion of tutors.

At this point, Jimmy suggested that perhaps his friend had had a bit of a crush, to which Edgar replied with an unusually violent threat to leave if Jimmy didn't shut up. Jimmy shut up.

The second thing that happened was the principal's discovery of the two dozen kids regularly hanging out on school grounds in an unsanctioned club without parental consent. As expected, it didn't go over well. But Edgar wasn't fired—which had always been up in the air. Meetups stopped, one or two children's parents were alerted, Edgar got a strong talking to about authority and overstepping the bounds therein, and Damon, who had been attending the more recent meets, found out exactly how opposed his parents were to anything and everything fun. Edgar wasn't the only one who found himself in trouble.

The next time they had one of their Saturday lunches, Damon confided that he was really getting tired of his parents' meddling, and this was only the latest in a long string of problems. He had seemed tired. Edgar remembered the way he sighed over his coffee instead of drinking it, the distant way he tuned in and out of conversation. The signs were all there, if Edgar had been looking, but he was much too close to the problem by then.

Life went on. Edgar continued counseling, pulling the students from the evening circle in for one-on-one, quiet meets—Edgar may have been a pushover on everything else, but when someone really needed him, he fought Hell itself for them. Meanwhile, the principal found he had a special fondness for belittling Edgar in the staffroom.

The Saturday lunches grew more distant. It wasn't long before Edgar started to worry about his student (his friend?). But there wasn't much of anything he could do, since Damon kept his problems to himself, and using professional methods to lever the information out of him just felt _wrong_ somehow. An invasion of privacy.

And then—and it shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was—Damon was dead. Edgar had read a lot about grief, had helped a lot of people through it, but the second hand experience can't compare to the real thing. Edgar had lost both of his parents, but somehow the suddenness of this loss, like lightning cracking through a clear sky, cut him right to the bone. It was a kind of cold disbelief, heavy with an unbearable sense of reality. They found a note in Damon's room, and there was a line addressed to Edgar. He'd hoped that this wouldn't be too hard on him.

Just like that. No dramatic speeches, no pleading, no second chances. Edgar couldn't even pray for him, because he'd been a rock-solid atheist and had never believed in anything, and would only have been irritated to hear that Edgar had bothered. And god, he had hoped it wouldn't be too _hard_ on Edgar. What a selfish little prick, didn't he realize that this was probably the hardest thing Edgar had ever lived through? That Edgar's life was, and always had been, an empty lonely thing and there were precious few bright spots, despite his upbeat attitude, and this little shove could and would send him spiraling into the darkness?

At this point, Edgar realized he was talking more to himself than Jimmy, and his throat was uncomfortably tight.

Time lost its coherency after that. Edgar went through his routine, put on a façade, went to church, school, staff meetings… and he was alone. Pathetically so, because what kind of self respecting adult hinges his entire happiness on one student? A student they can't even protect from something as preventable as suicide? A car accident, that would be different, but this--and he was a _councilor_ , he had no excuse--

He supposed this was how Damon had felt, like the color was sucked out of everything, and it was winter too… maybe if he could just make it till summer. It would be alright then. Then, he'd stop waking up in the middle of the night and hoping he'd died in his sleep, because that was a horrible way to live.

And then, inexplicably, he _had_ died.

Not by his own hand, because he would never actually _go_ that far, but by a madman with dark eyes and a tenuous grasp on reality, and--equally inexplicably--his life had brightened for a moment, because Edgar hadn't been looked at by another person like that in so long. Edgar hadn't been treated like a person in so long.

And in the minutes before he died, Edgar forgot that he had all but given up on life.

"You were ripped to shreds, right?" Jimmy asked, drawing his companion out of that strange place that only dark memories can take you.

Edgar lifted his head to see Jimmy peering over the arm of the couch, suddenly as aware of the apartment as if he'd slammed back into his body after drifting somewhere high overhead. For a moment, everything since the darkness of Johnny's basement seemed like a confusing dream.

"Right," he said. "Ripped to shreds..." He watched the light fading through the tiny window, red and black and strange. "But I suppose it was for a good cause."

"This guy," Jimmy said, narrowing his eyes, "he drags you off the street for absolutely no fucking reason just as you're starting to get better, straps you to a torture machine, wastes the last hour of your life yelling at you, then rips you to shreds, and you're gonna sit here like a prim little Madonna and say it was for a _good cause_?"

"Well," Edgar said, "he did need my blood. I mean, not mine, specifically. But he did need someone's."

"What is _wrong with you?"_   Jimmy shouted, startling Edgar quite badly. "You go through all of that bullshit and you aren't even _mad_? Were you fucking _lobotomized?_ Why don't you hate that kid? Why don't you hate Nny? You've never done nothing to no one, and they just used you like a god damn floor mat!"

Edgar pulled himself into a sitting position and smiled weakly. "I didn't know you cared," he joked softly. He didn't remember calling Johnny 'Nny'. He'd told himself he wouldn't do that, but then, he hadn't really been listening to himself as he went. The story kind of got away from him.

"Yeah, well, I don't!" Jimmy said. "It's just not fucking fair, that's all. I mean, if this shit happens to _you_ , there's no hope for the rest of us."

Edgar let out a tired little laugh. He wished he could show the Jimmy of this moment to the Jimmy of a couple weeks ago. But he wouldn't. Even if he could, he wouldn't. It wasn't fair of him to ask the Jimmy who didn't yet know him to stand up for him the way this Jimmy, who knew him, was trying to do.

"Of course there's hope for you," Edgar said. "If bad luck exists, then we've got to believe good luck exists out there somewhere too."

They were quiet for a minute, and Jimmy seemed to be debating something in his head, fingertips twitching on the battered yellow-brown fabric of the sofa.

"When you come to Hell," Jimmy said, slowly, "all the souls load up on a subway train. You pass through these turnstiles, and you have to put this coin through a slot, only it's not a coin really. It's all the stuff you thought you were proud of, and you have to give it away. Then you get on the train, and it's packed, and you have to sit there sweating until the thing stops and lets you off. It lasts a lot longer than it should. Gives you too much time to think. Nobody talks."

Edgar nodded.

"And me, I sat there, thinking about what I'd done and how I died, and I thought maybe," he said, "I'd been going about things the wrong way this whole time…"

He didn't seem to be talking to Edgar so much any more. He was watching the slow crumble of the ceiling, eyes hard and unblinking.

"I always knew I was doing wrong," Jimmy said. "I just thought, I don't know, maybe there was some kinda justice in it. Like maybe it was different 'cause I was doing it."

"I don't think anyone likes to think of themselves as the bad guy," Edgar said. He wished he could reach out and put a hand on Jimmy's hand. He watched the pale long fingers clench, knuckles bending, and wished he was brave enough to do something about it.

"I know you don't believe in evil, or whatever," Jimmy said. "But I've seen evil, and I always thought I was different. I hurt people, but I never hurt nobody who loved me."

"I'm not sure it makes a difference," Edgar said.

"I just don't understand how people can do that kind of shit to people they oughta love. You can turn it off with strangers. I know how to do that. But with someone who trusts you-" Jimmy rolled over, the hard edge of his stare buried in the upholstery and lost. Where his shirt rode up on his back, the knobs of his spine swelled under the skin.

"How do you hurt somebody who trusts you?" Jimmy said.

"I don't know," Edgar replied, eyes on the red sky outside the window, remembering cloudy gray days in the dead of winter when he'd wondered the same thing. "I don't know."

 _Aren't we selfish,_ he thought. _To think our hurt matters more_.

 


	10. A Second Chance at a First Impression

_Love the sinner, hate the sin_ ; similar but not to be confused with _fuck the sinner, fuck the sin_

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

A Second Chance at a First Impression

* * *

 

"Brooklyn's got nothin' on this," Jimmy said, kicking a particularly offensive can out of the road. "Hail Satan, I guess."

The two of them strolled along, more or less, an ambling kind of walk that matched their ambling kind of talk. The sunless sky beat down on them, but the streets were still milling with people and the smell of sulfuric acid lingered in the darker alleys. A typical eternity in Hell.

"It's not so bad," Edgar replied, smiling up at the sky. Al was up there, glaring away at an alley to their right. Probably a mugging. Al hated muggings. "Sure, the company is generally terrible, and the restaurants never get your order right, and the shrieks of the damned keep you up at all hours of the day, but the sky is a lovely shade of red."

"Bah," was Jimmy's only response.

They were walking along Cocytus Avenue, practicing the art of ignoring people's glares and rude comments. It seemed like really hard work for Jimmy, who kept twitching and growling at anyone whose gaze lingered too long. Edgar bit down on a smile, forbidding himself to comment on how much Jimmy resembled an ill-tempered mutt on a short leash. His favorite book store was up ahead, a ways along, and the dead man was planning to drag his friend inside and forcibly introduce him to proper literature. It probably wasn't the best time to indulge in teasing.

"Y'know, it's weird," Jimmy started, eyeing a trio of recently deceased, nervous-looking cheerleaders on the opposite side of the street. "You don't really see people… like, _together_ down here. You see couples, maybe sometimes, but never people like… like us."

"Oh?" Edgar prodded. _Friends_ , perhaps was what Jimmy meant. People who enjoyed each other's company. Among the damned it was eternally lonely but never alone, leaving each soul an island in a sea of people. 

"I've seen a lot of my old… uh… the guys around, and they're never together." Jimmy made a helpless gesture that Edgar recognized as his _I know what I'm talking about but I can't explain it_ motion _._ "It's just… you know."

"Do you think that's why they glare at us?" Edgar asked with a laugh.

"No," Jimmy said. A storm cloud hovered over his expression. "Anyways, why are you taking me here?"

"Since you were denied both your last year of high school and the opportunity for college, it's my job to educate you. We're going to a book store, and we're picking you out some required reading."

"Of all the lame-ass…" Jimmy huffed out a breath, already conceding defeat. "The hell is that _your_ job?"

"Once a teacher always a teacher," Edgar replied breezily, spotting the sign up ahead. "Besides, I want to be able to talk to you about this stuff. I know you'll have a thing or two to say."

Curiously, Jimmy didn't argue with that. He simply reached out and pulled the door open for Edgar—also curious, in that Jimmy was not what you'd call gentlemanly by any stretch of the imagination.

They ventured inside, greeted by darkness that was utterly impractical for a bookstore, as well as a hoard of Anne Rice wanna-be titles lining the front display. Jimmy wrinkled his nose, muttering something about stupid fucking Goths which was awfully funny considering his choice in wardrobe. Edgar just eyed the darkness uneasily.

After the hit-and-run the first time he was here, Edgar was wary of attracting employee attention. In his experience thus far, if you kept quiet, they generally ignored you—terrible customer service, but actually helpful in this case—and he doubted that the same man would be here today… but still, you can't be too careful.

"Here," Edgar directed, pointing to the dusty back shelves. "All the good literature is in the back."

"Which means something totally different coming from you," Jimmy muttered.

There was so much to show him. Without getting too far ahead of himself, Edgar couldn't help but buzz at the thought of an endless eternity to spend curating a reading list for Jimmy, the places they could go, the things they could share. Endless white afternoons on the couch, flipping through whatever came their way, watching the history of Earth unfold in yellow paper. A novel open in his hands, his back to Jimmy's chest, as Jimmy read bits and pieces over his shoulder. Obviously they wouldn't like all the same things, but that was alright, fighting about it could be fun too...

"Let's see…" Edgar ran his fingers over the beautifully bound, if dusty, spines. " _Dante_ in modern syntax… yes, we'll need that one… _Lovecraft_ … couldn't hurt… and that one… oh, and that one…"

Jimmy more or less patiently behind him as he made his way down the rows, stopping every so often to recount the story of how he found _this_ book, or the professor who had taught him with _that_ one. They collected six by the end of it, all fairly short and simply written for Jimmy's sake. He wasn't about to spring _Heart of Darkness_ on a first timer. It occurred to Edgar too late that he'd have to go up front and actually _buy_ these books, since there were so many of them. Drat, but he'd been so close to escaping.

"My moral compass should really learn to take a nap every so often," he muttered to himself. Gesturing to Jimmy, he went on louder, "Come on, we have to purchase these."

Jimmy flipped through the stack of books in Edgar's arms. "So…" he started, checking out the dusty depths of the rarely-visited bookstore. "…Why _Dante's Inferno_? Don't you think I know enough about Hell?"

"The Devil has a strange sense of humor," Edgar answered. "You read that, and suddenly you'll get all _kinds_ of little jokes. It's incorrigible, really."

No one was at the counter, predictably, and Jimmy took great joy in beating the life out of the service bell. Eventually, one of the heavily made-up boys from the back room sauntered up, gave Jimmy—who was still pounding away at the bell—a look cold enough to kill a kitten with exposure, and turned to Edgar.

"Yeah?"

Edgar took this moment to summon up his Book Store Personality, a mental switch flick, and shot back, " _Books_. Ring them up."

Not to be out-assed, the clerk took great pleasure in screwing up the very simple code swiping process, and even more in dropping all the lovely books unceremoniously into the waiting bag. Edgar buried a wince at their loud 'thunk'.

"Cash or credit?" the cashier sneered, tapping black fingernails on the counter-top.

Edgar did not deign to answer, instead holding out his card with an expression so positively _dripping_ distaste that it seemed to plop onto the counter and roll, leaving trails of haughty goo in its wake. The cashier appeared to be losing their battle of unpleasantness, since he had no comeback for that and simply swiped the little blue card. The little clouds all over it flashed through the reader, and silver lettering that said, "Ask and you shall receive."

Jimmy, meanwhile, was looking bemused by the whole exchange, and kept trying to catch Edgar's eye. Unfortunately, maintaining the cool aloof façade took the enormity of Edgar's mental control, and there was no way to reassure Jimmy without the cashier inevitably smelling blood in the water. Jimmy cleared his throat. He held fast.

"Jesus," Jimmy finally said, "What the fuck, man?"

Predictably, the clerk jumped on that. "Hey," he said, "tell your boyfriend to shut up. I'm trying to ignore you."

"Fuck you," Edgar shot back, batting not an eye, "I wouldn't even _know_ you were ignoring me with that pitiful glare."

"Snob."

"Bitch."

"Wanna-be."

"At least I don't have to get my coworkers to jack me off every time I pass _Interview with a Vampire_."

"...that's good."

"I know."

And with that exchange completed, the clerk bagged their books and wished them a pleasant day.

Edgar switched off the Book Store Personality quite easily and dragged Jimmy out the door, the bag of books swinging merrily from his arm. For reasons he didn't particularly want to examine, a few minutes in character always cheered him up. It was probably unhealthy, but what the hell, he was _dead_. A couple Freudian quirks weren't going to hurt him.

"Dude, that was creepy," Jimmy muttered. "Who's the Evil Twin?"

"My secret weapon. Turns out the best way to get what you want from jerks is to be an even bigger jerk than them," Edgar said. He smiled a secret smile. "And it's fun too. I always thought I should have done theater. I was always too scared to try out, when I was in school."

"Hit me like a fuckin' tornado," Jimmy grumbled, this time more to himself than Edgar. "And to think I worried about you..."

"Me?" Edgar questioned, raising a brow. Jimmy did not worry about people. Period.

Shifty-eyes ensued. "Well, maybe not _worried_... but, y'know, you really don't look like you'd hold up against the Forces of Hell."

"What, stupidity and vitriol? You forget, Jimmy. I was here for a long time before you arrived."

"...Oh. No, I mean, I know."

There was a hint of something in his expression that made Edgar wonder. Maybe he really hadn't known? After all, Edgar never bothered to talk about the months before Jimmy's arrival--they had been dull, in comparison, and very little of interest had happened to him. Perhaps, in Jimmy's mind, Edgar hadn't existed until that day in the alley. Maybe, for Jimmy, Edgar had arrived fully formed in that moment like Venus stepping down off her clamshell.

"So I'm a damsel in distress, am I?" Edgar replied instead.

"Don't worry babe," Jimmy said, with an exaggerated leer, "I'll get you down from that big, thick tower and onto a _real_ tower."

Edgar buried a snort in his hand as Jimmy threw an arm around his shoulders, and they stumbled down off the sidewalk and into the street. He shouldn't laugh, the innuendo was so stupid, but he couldn't help it. Asinine as it was, who could help but love Jimmy?

Surely that was how anyone would feel, if they just spent the time.

Jimmy's arm around his shoulders lingered much longer than the laughter took to trail off, absent and comfortable and anchoring him in close against Edgar's side. His weight made Edgar's skin tingle, strange but not unpleasant, and Edgar found that even after several streets had passed, he was loathe to say anything that might remind his friend to take his arm back. Edgar wasn't sure where they were headed now, since the apartment was in the other direction, but he was perfectly happy to go there with company.

"Why do you think it's so empty around here?" Jimmy asked, breaking off their conversation rather suddenly, turning his eyes to the sinister windows above them.

Hell was always growing, sliding along the fault line of this road and the Styx, which wove in and out of the city. The apartments seemed to shift just a little bit every time he visited, and he knew that eventually the whole town would migrate completely, leaving ruins and abandoned buildings in its wake. But for now it just threw off his internal map.

And it meant that he still occasionally got lost after all those months.

Edgar looked up, and he noticed where Jimmy's eyes were focused. The windows _were_ lifeless, and the streets emptier still. They were alone. Totally alone. An open door ahead shifted slightly in the hot wind. The creaking street sign read "Lethe", and below that, "Lethe" again.

Jimmy's arm slid off his back, leaving a chill in its wake. Edgar wrapped his own arms around himself. "Ah..." He looked around nervously. "We seem to have wandered into the abandoned section of Hell."

"Lethe" another signpost said. And "Lethe" again.

Jimmy scowled. "That's creepy as shit. Let's get out of here."

Without a second of hesitation, they both turned on their heels and marched back the way they came. Edgar hoped to God that spacetime would stay linear enough to let them retrace their steps. The alternative was too upsetting to contemplate. He wondered where the road led, if you followed it for long enough. Where did it go? To the fifties? To Mexico? Or maybe it was a tesseract, looping back on itself endlessly. After all, Earthly laws didn't apply here. Did reality just... end?

He had never been able to find the gate to Hell again in all his wanderings, no matter how many times he looked. If what lay beyond here was only more of Hell, stretching on infinitely into human history, why that gate?

Could you reach Earth from here? Would you still be real if you did?

"So..." Jimmy started awkwardly, following that lapse in the conversation, "have you seen whatshisface? ...Uh, Damon?"

Edgar said nothing for a startled moment. "Er... no. I haven't."

"Oh," Jimmy said. An awkward air seemed to settle around him. "'Cause, y'know, he's dead an' all... and he oughta be around here somewhere..."

A shutter clattered hollowly against a window sill above them, loose on its hinges. Edgar jumped at the sound, and then coughed to cover the moment. "Damon was a devoted atheist, I'm afraid. He'd rather spend eternity decomposing in a box than admit he was wrong. I don't know how the system works, but something tells me he's not here."

"Oh," Jimmy said again, looking ...relieved?

"Why?"

"Just... you know," Jimmy said, shifting halfway from awkward to nervous. As distracting as the looming hollow eyes of the abandoned city were, they were nothing compared to the strange pull of Jimmy's features.

Edgar looked hard at him. "Do you think I wouldn't come around any more if I had someone else to talk to?"

"That's _not_ what I was worried about," Jimmy said, ignoring Edgar's raised brow. "Besides, you couldn't ditch me if you wanted to. I'd, like, tie you to the radiator or something. I know how to keep what I got."

 _That_ was an interesting image. Edgar shuddered. "Let's stop that train of thought before it leads somewhere unpleasant."

Jimmy shot him a sly look. "You're just scared I'll say something about rape now."

A breath of laughter burst out of Edgar's lungs. "Ah, yes, kind of."

"Ahah!" Jimmy shouted, voice ringing oddly on the empty street. "But here's the problem, my faggy friend. You know what the problem is?"

In spite of his better judgment, Edgar said, "What?" 

Jimmy leant in close. "The problem is, you can't rape the willing!"

And then he dashed off ahead, giggling, and Edgar went scrambling after, deeply offended and hot on his heels.

 

 

 

The next evening fell as Edgar was buying a soda from the 7/11 nearest the subway when gunshots outside the window made him look up, all at once. Through the bars on the windows, night was steadily spreading across the sky like a bloodstain soaking into a white shirt. Hopefully, whoever was shooting would take their hissy fit the other way, because Edgar didn't particularly like the idea of taking a bullet to the chest, though he _had_ been through far worse.

Bottle in one hand and popped cap in the other, the murdered man exited the premise. What to do now? There was the theater, if he wanted to take a nap, or he could visit the bagel shop, or find Jimmy, or he could just sit on the street corner and drink his coke. Decisions, decisions. Of course, it was "night" now, so Jimmy would be at the club most likely... probably feeling up some poor damned soul, the horny bastard.

Edgar scowled.

Well, maybe he _wanted_ to talk to Jimmy? How about that? Huh? He could just go... find him, right? Never mind if he was at a club, dancing and/or molesting people. Edgar could go where he pleased, including clubs that Jimmy might or might not be patronizing. Anyway, suppose he needed to talk to Jimmy? About something. He'd think of something. The cynical voice in the back of his head informed him that he was doing that _thing_ again. It was ignored.

His feet led him down a random street with little input from his brain, because for now this part of town was as second nature to him as banter with Jimmy. One street faded into the next, and emerging goths scuttled across his path, occasionally hissing at him. It was really quite strange, because he at least _looked_ like a member of a related subculture, and you would think that someone scorned by society would appreciate someone else in a similar position.

Wishful thinking, he supposed.

The club stood just like he remembered it, windows pulsing with green and pink, the neon sign short a few key letters. He paused at the door, hand on the cold metal, and took a fortifying breath. He'd already been inside once, even if he hadn't know what exactly he was going into back then. What did it matter that he knew now? It was still the same club. His fingers on the metal slipped a little with sweat.

He pushed through the door, this time careful not to get caught in the undulating mass of humanity. Now, if he was a dead reprobate let loose in Hell's loosest nightclub, where would he be?

Edgar spotted Jimmy leaning against the bar, talking to a stranger. Jimmy was in the middle of a sentence when he noticed Edgar walking towards him, doubtlessly looking tense and out of sorts, for all that he was trying to blend in. Edgar could see him trail off, lips falling still in the middle of a word. Oh gosh, damn, maybe this was a bad time after all.

"Hey Jimmy," he said, with a nervous little wave. "Am I interrupting something?"

"...Nooo..." Jimmy said, glancing at his companion. Said companion turned his attention to Edgar with a sort of curiosity that seemed impersonal but not innocent in the slightest. Edgar had an uncomfortable flashback to the hit-and-run in the bookstore. He knew _that_ look, or at least he thought he did.

"Who's this?" the stranger asked, gel-spiked hair catching the strobe light in a dizzying flash.

"Uh, yeah. This is my... uh..."

In that break of a second, it occured to Edgar that he and Jimmy might not have a normal friendship at all.

"...My friend. Um..."

Edgar blinked, waiting for a proper introduction. When none was forth-coming, a terrible thought occurred to him. "Jimmy," he started, eyes a bit wide, "You... you don't actually remember my name, do you?"

"Um..." He had the decency to look sheepish, at least.

Edgar groaned, bringing a hand up to knead his forehead. "You... you absolute  _idiot_. I can't believe this. My name is _Edgar,_ Jimmy. We've been hanging out for _weeks_ , literally, I slept on your couch. How do you not know this?"

Jimmy threw up his hands, pale fingers flashing above his cut-off gloves. "I'm fucking sorry, jesus, you introduced yourself once in an alley and I had other things on my mind!"

"Is that why you've been calling me _slurs_ this whole time?" Edgar said, getting more and more wound up. "You couldn't remember my fucking _name?"_

"What was I supposed to do? You were at my door with drugs, it was too late to ask!"

The stranger cleared his throat. "Uh, guys? Third wheel here, feeling pretty left out. I'm Cory," he introduced, winking at the off-kilter Edgar who deflated, all at once remembering where he was.

Cory was handsome, in a way, straight-toothed and pleasant, but he had narrow, calculating eyes. They made Edgar nervous. Very nervous. And they reminded him of why he always had such confidence issues back on Earth.

"Er, hi, Cory. I'm, yeah, I'm Edgar. Edgar Vargas. Nice to... meet you."

"Mexican?" he inquired, sweeping his eyes over the dead man with a little too much fervor. Edgar felt as if he'd been asked the color of his underwear rather than his census details.

"Ah, part Mexican. It's a... latin gene pool, you might say."

Cory leaned in just a fraction, smiling. "Spicy. I bet you're a lot of fun."

...Was Edgar the only one noticing what a sleezeball this guy was? You wouldn't think that there could be a sleezeball big enough to stand out in the underground rave/sodomy scene, but there was the proof, standing two feet away and wearing glow-sticks around his wrists.

"Well, um, thanks..." Edgar managed, fiendishly embarrassed. He felt a burning need to blurt something along the lines of ''Sorry, I don't swing that way,'' regardless of whether or not he actually did. Who calls another human being _spicy?_

Jimmy chose that moment to break in. "OH-kay, so everybody's introduced. Great. F- _Edgar_ , did you, like, need something?"

Edgar paused, sobered now from his earlier indignation. Had he actually needed something? Well, honestly no. He'd only wanted to find Jimmy, and possibly work up the courage to dance with him - not likely, after last time's fiasco, but still a nice thought - and he hadn't counted on Sleezeball McGee over there train-wrecking his ability to improvise.

The awkward silence stretched, as Edgar could not find anything but a static field of unease under his scrambling thoughts.

Cory's eyes darted back and forth between them, and then he seemed to make up his mind about something. "Hey, Jimmy, we're pretty much done here right? You can call me if there's anything else. For now, though... I'd like to dance, if your _friend_ wouldn't mind?"

The emphasis on that word promised nothing good for any of them. Oh god, could he say no? There didn't seem to be a polite way to do it. A glance at Jimmy, who looked like he also wanted to say something but wasn't sure what _to_ say, and then the awkwardness took control of Edgar's brain.

"Er... I can't really dance, you see..."

"That's not a _no!"_ Cory crowed, making to pull Edgar into the crowd. Why always him?

Edgar threw a desperate glance in Jimmy's direction. _Come on, if there was ever a time to disparage my dancing skills, NOW WOULD BE GREAT._ But Jimmy only stared, apparently taken by surprise. Edgar mouthed 'help' and tugged at the arms of the man now dragging him away. There had to be a way to extricate himself from this encounter without making a scene.

Jimmy looked from Edgar's mouth to his straining wrist, and then all at once it was as if someone had hit _play._ He surged through the slowly closing crowd after them, his arm lashing out in the flashbulb pink strobelight. Cory coughed and staggered, grip tightening, as Jimmy caught him tight around the throat and dragged him back. In the weeks they had known each other, in Edgar's mind Jimmy had been the cat and the spider and even the puppy, but Edgar had never seen this look on him before--the spring coiled tenseness, like a living switchblade, reckless and devastating.

Edgar remembered, suddenly, that this was a man who had idolized Johnny C.

"What my friend is too _nice_ to say," Jimmy growled, "Is that he doesn't _want_ to dance with you. I, on the other hand, have no problem telling you to _fuck._ Off. Take your sticky hand off his fucking wrist or I will strangle you, right here, right now, so help me God."

Cory let go like Edgar's skin was superheated. He stared, for a moment, at Jimmy, who gradually released his throat. You didn't need to have a major in psychological studies to notice the distinctly unstable look on Jimmy's face, although Edgar did.

"Jimmy..." he started, tentatively reaching out a hand--maybe to touch Jimmy's shoulder, maybe to pull him away before he snapped. He didn't like where this was going, and certainly not that it was happening on his account.

Cory cut him off, a hand hovering over his bruised throat. "No, wait a goddamn second, kid. What's it to _you_ if I drag your friend off and drop a roofie in his drink? You know you can always have a turn when I'm done, I'm not a _total_ cockblock."

"Is that what you were _planning_?" Edgar asked, alarmed. He was, of course, ignored.

"And something else," Cory went on, with the air of a man on the verge of finishing a puzzle. "You don't _have_ friends, Jimmy. People like you don't, and you in particular _definitely_ don't. What, are--are you _sweet_ on him--"

Jimmy lunged, burying a fist in the soft meat of Cory's stomach with enough force that the man went over sideways in a heap. Jimmy looked like he was going to follow his opponent to the floor, ostensensibly to beat the living daylights out of him, but Edgar caught his arm this time and really did pull him away. The teen struggled in his grasp, but Edgar had a good grip and was actually, it seemed, a bit stronger than him. He wrestled Jimmy back, through the humid darkness and over the pulsing floor, and finally to the sanctuary of the quiet outside world.

With a heel kicking the door back open behind him, Edgar used his last bit of strength to toss Jimmy out of the club and onto the concrete sidewalk. The door fell to behind him, cutting off the music with a clean _click_. That had better be enough, he wasn't sure how much more he had left in him.

He slumped against the dark glass, panting.

Jimmy glared up at him, spikes of hair flipped over his eyes, black nails scrabbling at the sidewalk. Edgar waited, leaning against the vibrating window that stretched out on either side of him. Miniscule pebbles on the concrete jumped with the muffled baseline. Jimmy grit his teeth. "That shitty little... _fucker,_ " he said. "I oughta rip his goddamn guts out, I oughta cut his dick off and feed it to him like a fucking sausage, I oughta-"

"Um," Edgar cut in quickly, mildly disturbed, "I know none of us can technically _die_ , but I really don't think this line of reasoning is a healthy way of coping with aggression."

"And you! Why'd you pull me outa there? I could've taken care of him in five minutes, but you had to drag me off! Do you realize what he was saying? About me? About _you?"_

"Well, yes, I got the general idea..."

"There you go again!" Jimmy shouted, a nail snapping off at the tip as he gouged the sidewalk. "There you go again with your martyr bullshit! You don't stand up for yourself, you don't get angry! It's not _natural!_ You aren't mad at that kid, you aren't mad at Nny, you aren't even mad at this fucker inside! Well, somebody's gonna fight back and if it's not gonna be you then I'll do it. I'll cut him up so bad the Devil himself won't know how to put him back together!"

"But he didn't... Jimmy, he didn't even do anything that terrible."

"Oh yeah?" Jimmy laughed, although there was nothing humorous in his voice. "What about slipping a mickey in your drink?"

"I'm pretty sure he was just kidding about that," Edgar replied, nervously. "Or, you know, exaggerating."

"Oh, you _would_ think that, wouldn't you? Listen here, _Edgar_ , there's people in the world a helluva lot scarier than I am, and they get their bread buttered by dumbshit choir boys like you. Fuck, of all the moments for you to walk into the club, it _had_ to be the night I was talking to Cory. I knew the second you walked in the door..."

Edgar slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground, same as Jimmy, with his legs pulled up to his chest. Well this was... an interesting development.

Had he lost track of the fact that this was actual, literal Hell? Had he started to take this place for granted, after all this time? It was silly of him to forget that for every dim but harmless bagel man and lint woman, there were endless legions of real bastards out there who had left the world much worse for wear when they left it. Real human horror. Real cold-blooded cruelties. They must exist, but they all seemed so far away from him, from his life of quiet desperation, soft with loneliness but never marked with any _real_ tragedy. He had avoided putting himself in danger for so long that he often forgot where real danger lay.

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly. “I never meant to cause all this hassle.”

"Oh fuck," Jimmy groaned, "don't you go apologizing. As if you need any more excuse to be... you. Shit."

They were quiet for a moment, and Edgar craned to get a look in the window above his head. He was curious to see if Cory was still at the fringes of the crowd or if he'd made his way onto the dance floor. The glass was much too dark to make out either way.

"Look... Edgar," Jimmy started, seeming to taste the name as he pronounced it, apparently liking the flavor. "I dunno... I think, maybe, _I'm_ sorry?"

"You don't have to be sorry."

"I just get so _mad_ ," Jimmy said, curling over his knees, fingers tight in the wrinkles of his jeans. "What he said about you--I've seen it happen before-"

Edgar held up a hand. "It's alright, Jimmy. He creeped me out too. I just don't want you to go do something you'll regret because you worked yourself into a indecent fury, particuarly not on my behalf."

Jimmy's face took on a peculiar expression, a little bit incredulous, a little bit amused. Words seemed to wait on the curve of his lips, but no sound made its way out. After a moment, he just shook his head and said, "Let's get a drink, yeah? I think I need it."

"Well," Edgar said, "they do say it's unhealthy to drink alone."

"Alright, c'mon, there's an _actual_ bar down the street, and you got that little blue credit card."

Edgar smiled wider. After a few drinks, equilibrium settled back into place, and the episode of before was... not forgotten, but moved away from. Edgar wouldn't think deeply about it again until much later, when he was awake in the darkness of a room that smelled almost like home. All that remained was a tingle in his fingertips when he thought too hard about the wild look on Jimmy's face, or the way his nails had dug into that man's throat.

He shook it off, and went off for a drink.

_"So why were you talking to him anyways?"_

_"Um... he said he could get me a car."_

 

 

 

Edgar awoke slowly, his mind still abstract and slow as if moving through water. Sleep was something he only did in Hell… so he must be in Hell, then, although he couldn't remember why. Without opening his eyes, Edgar twitched his fingers, running over a fabric that resembled tweed worn bare by years of use, which seemed ridiculously familiar but he just couldn't place it.

Eyes open. His first impression was light, dusty as if filtered through dirty windows, and then the fuzzy edges of walls and a ceiling, walls painted a familiar androgynous purple.

Oh. He was in Jimmy's apartment again, on his couch. Now he remembered. He reached out a hand and felt around for his glasses on the floor, where they had been carefully tucked under the tweed dust ruffle.

"Sulfur!" announced an irate voice from somewhere behind Edgar.

Edgar sat up and twisted to see over the back of the sofa, greeted by the fuzzy sight of Jimmy standing at the door of his bedroom—squeezing a tube of toothpaste a lot more violently than it could have possibly deserved.

"I'm sorry," Edgar said, ducking down for a moment to pull on his glasses. "What?"

"Sulfur! It's in every fucking thing in this house! The label on the toothpaste says it, the shampoo says it, the conditioner says it, what the hell kinda chemical is in toothpaste _and_ shampoo? Are they trying to poison us all? It's a goddamn conspiracy! What about all the toothpaste I swallowed already? I'm gonna sue these pointy-tailed assholes for all they got—"

"Jimmy!" Edgar cut in, "Jimmy, be quiet please!"

Jimmy scowled and pulled his arms in tight across his chest, T-shirt hanging askew from his shoulder in an absurdly Madonna-esque fashion. The low hem just covered the tops of his bare thighs.

"Why," Edgar started, "why were you looking at the ingredients list on the toothpaste and shampoo anyways?"

The hem shifted over the paint-fleck spatter of freckles on Jimmy's thighs. Was he wearing--but he had to be wearing underwear, why would he come out here if he wasn't? Edgar eyed the dangerous dip of fabric, unwilling to look away but wishing he could. He didn't want to think about that, he _didn't_ want to but if something was going to reveal itself in the anxious flash of a second then Edgar wasn't going to miss it.

Jimmy lifted the tube of toothpaste and squinted at it, his hair pushed limply over the side of his skull, wet from the shower. "Maybe I just wanted to know what I was putting in my mouth, already."

The shirt rode high on one hip as his arm moved. Edgar could make out the shadow where thigh creased into pelvis, bare skin, smooth and creamy. Limbs stiff as a loaded spring, Edgar lowered himself back down into the couch and looked up at the safe nothingness of the ceiling.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with last night, would it?" Edgar asked.

"What the fuck could this have to do with last night? You were the one about to get mickeyed, not me." 

In spite of himself, Edgar smiled. "Were you worried about me, Jimmy?"

"Fuck you-" there was a thump, as if Jimmy had kicked his heel back into the doorframe. "Whadda I care if you don't watch what you drink?" 

"You _were_ worried about me," Edgar said. "I'm flattered, Jimmy. But I don't think your apartment is going to hit me with anything I can't handle."

" _I'm_ gonna hit you with something you can't handle," Jimmy said, dangerously, "if you don't shut the fuck up."

Edgar sat up on his elbows, grinning. He ought to sleep over more often, really, if this was the kind of morning he'd have. If you could say one thing for Jimmy, it was that he certainly wasn't boring—or, you could say that he was a degenerate petty criminal with no concept of personal space. Whichever.

A serious thought intruded on the sanguine flow, then, unpleasantly serious for just waking up. But now he was thinking, what if Jimmy _wasn't_ around? What if, for some reason, Jimmy moved on… moved away… got reincarnated… or… stopped talking to Edgar, for whatever reason. What then?

Edgar got a flash of the scene, saw himself returning to the one-man life that he had lived before Damon and the singular existence he had experienced after his death—only now with the memory of camaraderie, of little joking moments, of awkwardness that was remembered with an irrational fondness. An afterlife without Jimmy, now that the two words seemed almost inseparable.

The flash of sober thought must have carried through the silence, because Jimmy uncrossed his arms, tossed the tube somewhere behind him, and pushed off the wall, a curious expression fixed on Edgar. He always thought of the teen as being self-centered, but maybe he wasn't giving Jimmy enough credit. In fact, it was startling how many times his concern had managed to surprise Edgar. All portrayed through a filter of callous cynicism, but even Edgar wasn't oblivious enough to miss it completely.

"Dude," Jimmy said, a little quieter than usual, "what's up? You have some kind of freaky-ass dream?"

Edgar thought about lying, and then figured, why start now? "No," he said, "actually, I was thinking about. You know. The future."

"What about it?"

"Well... what's going to happen to us, I suppose. Haven't you ever thought about it?"

"Fuck the future," Jimmy said, "hasn't happened yet anyway. Far as I know, thinking about the future doesn't do much but stress you out."

Edgar thought about that. "But you've got to make plans," he went on, "I mean, what if I disappeared? What would you do?"

Jimmy's eyes narrowed and he leant down to rest his elbows on the couch between them, their faces suddenly inches apart.

"You planning on leaving?" Jimmy asked, a shrewd tone in his voice now.

"No," came the reply, as Edgar tried not to collapse backwards. A hasty retreat would probably not do his case any good, even if they were now centimeters apart and that was kind of making it hard to think.

Jimmy had beautiful eyes. Almost ghostly, with their pale irises and dark encircling edges.

"Well, if you aren't leaving," he said, slowly, "and I'm sure not leaving... what's the point in thinking about it?"

Edgar found himself at a loss. It had seemed reasonable to him, but then, he couldn't quite remember why in the face of Jimmy's asymetrical logic and... proximity. One thing was for certain: it was too early in the morning for this business. And Jimmy was much too close--Edgar could tell far too well that Jimmy had just gotten out of the shower. He could see every drop of water running down the boy's face and neck, tracing contours where Edgar had never (allowed himself to) pay attention before. The loose neckline of the t-shirt hung heavy off Jimmy's shoulder, and underneath that there was skin, endless wet skin.

Something caught in his throat, made it hard to breathe.

In some corner of his mind he realized that he was staring, and that wasn't polite, but Jimmy was staring right back so it evened out right? Not that he could have stopped himself if it didn't.

He hated it when Jimmy got like this, all quiet and intent, with those ghost eyes that seemed to see right through the surface of Edgar into the shivery longing underneath. He felt like he _wanted_ something, badly, and he wished, before he could catch himself, that Jimmy would touch him. Run a fingertip over his jugular in that way that Edgar only imagined at times like these, that made him so incredibly nervous, so that he could feel his blood pumping against the pressure of Jimmy's skin...

God, something was wrong with him--well, Jimmy was a man and men were what Edgar liked, in theory, but saying, "okay, I'm gay", is nothing at all like feeling this haze of _sensation_ flooding his veins, searing his nerves. Jimmy was the burn in his skin, beyond words or definitions. It wasn't even as if Jimmy was handsome. Most people wouldn't think so. But when he was so close, when he was close enough to touch or... or kiss... well, he was _something._ The boy had beautiful tapered fingers and strange, pale eyes, and a body thin enough to be fragile, like glass, skin and bone...

(Fucked-up guys, he thought. It's something about fucked-up guys.)

There was no word for it. He was inevitable and the whole world seemed to stop moving, and it was just Jimmy, just Jimmy and Edgar's burning skin begging to be touched, somehow, and he wouldn't care if it was a kiss or a blow to the face at this point.

It didn't usually last this long. Most of the time, it was a passing sensation--almost a dream remembered--over so quickly that Edgar couldn't question it or analyze it. But Jimmy, now, Jimmy wouldn't move. And he wanted to break the spell as much as he wanted to savor it, because he knew it would never go farther than this and it had never lasted so long before...

And the younger man's fingers, thin and long with black painted nails, brushed Edgar's face, sending chills through his skin. This couldn't go on, this had to end, he had to move, he had to... to...

_BAM_

A gunshot exploded somewhere outside the apartment, shattering the air and the bubble of dreamlike tension. Edgar, wide-eyed and alarmed and all too familiar now with the bamboo crack of a firing pistol, rolled off the couch and stumbled to the door. Somewhere behind him, Jimmy was cursing.

Nothing was visible through the peephole--lucky, since it meant they weren't right outside--so with a glance back at his friend, Edgar unlocked and opened the door just a crack.

"Hey, don't do that-"

"Shh, I want to know what's going on."

"Shit Edgar, you're gonna get yourself shot-"

"Well I hope not, but you can only die once."

With Jimmy once again cursing in the background, Edgar slipped out into the hallway and took a look around, eyes on the empty corridor and the suddenly foreboding staircase with its incredibly worn carpet steps. The sounds of moving feet and muttering voices filtered up through there, growing a little louder every second. Just as Edgar was about to step back into the apartment, a trio of heads appeared just over the top of the staircase and, catching sight of him, rushed all the way up into the light.

"Hey you!" the first one shouted, a dark man with squinted eyes. "I recognize you!"

Edgar wisely decided not to ask how he could see anything with that squint.

"Yeah," snarled the second one, this one fairly unremarkable except for the very shiny pistol in his hand. "You're that faggot who always hangs out with the skinny fuck."

"...er, who?"

"The guy who killed us," the third said. "We've seen him walking around town with you, don't think we didn't notice. Who are you, anyways? His partner in crime? His fuck toy?"

"Um…" Edgar backed up, slowly, estimating the distance to the door, "We're just friends. Really."

"Uhuh," the third man grunted. "Friends with a psycho like that. Sure. Whatever. Get out of the way, boy, we've got some business with your _friend_."

"Look, Jimmy didn't kill you," Edgar said, now more annoyed at being called _boy_ than appropriately wary _._ "You've got him confused with somebody else—"

"Confused?" the man with the gun interrupted, "the fuck I'm confused! I'd recognize that piece of shit anywhere! He fed my feet to rats!"

"Ah, see, Jimmy's been dead for quite a while now—"

"Don't go trying to protect him!" the first man yelled, vein popping in his forehead. "He better get his faggot ass out here right now so he can see what it's like to have a hiking boot shoved up _his_ anus! HA! I wore 'em special for the occasion!"

"Now, let's not get violent—"

The third man shook his head. "I've had just about enough screwing around with you, boy. José, shut him up, would you?"

With an awful little smile, the middle man lifted up his pistol and shot, point blank, through Edgar's chest.

"Shit," Edgar said, and then proceeded to fall unconscious.

 

 

 

The world swam into focus a little more slowly this time, but Edgar remembered immediately where he was. Or, where he should have been. Because weirdly enough, he found himself back on the couch as if he'd never woken up at all.

A hand quickly reached up and fingered a ragged hole in the fabric of his shirt—great, now he had to go shopping _again—_ sticky with congealing blood. The skin underneath was as smooth and brown as it had ever been, and he idly wondered if the bullet was still lodged in his body somewhere. Would he set off metal detectors?

"Jimmy?" he called out, "Jimmy, are you there?"

"Yeah," came the shouted reply, and Jimmy's head appeared in the doorway of the kitchenette. "Hold up."

After a couple seconds of metal clanging on metal, he walked back into the living room with a bowl of macaroni in hand. He didn't _look_ like he'd been in a fight. He looked just peachy keen, actually.

"What happened?" Edgar said.

"Told ya you were gonna get shot," Jimmy said, with a scowl. "I dragged your stupid body back in here after they left. You've been out cold for hours."

Edgar had the weirdest image of Jimmy grabbing his hand and pulling his passed-out self into the apartment like the proverbial sack of potatoes, swearing the whole way. He wondered how banged up he'd gotten in the process.

"Thanks. Are you okay?"

"Me?" the kid laughed, "I'm just peachy, 'cause _I'm_ not dumb enough to stick around when people are shooting guns at me."

 _Coward_ , Edgar thought a little sourly, _you street rat little coward_.

"Don't look at me like that," Jimmy said, shoving a spoonful of macaroni into his mouth. "'m na dumb, 'm jus tryina survive."

Edgar sighed and rubbed a smear of congealing blood between his fingers. Curiosity killed the cat, he would concede. But satisfaction, yes, satisfaction brought him back.

"They thought you were Johnny," he mused, almost to himself. "I guess I can see how they might, I mean, all of you people must look alike to them."

" _You people_?" Jimmy demanded. "What do you mean, 'you people'?"

Edgar shrugged, looking away. "You and Johnny. Goths. Skinny fags. Whatever. You people."

The unspoken shared secret hung between them, the elephant in the room, the unconfirmed accusation that Edgar had never made. This is the thing they don't talk about; this is the place where a step too far will take them off the known map and into Terra Incognita. Edgar couldn't have said what Johnny meant to Jimmy any more than Jimmy could probably have said what exactly Johnny meant to Edgar--he just sat, the dark overlapping venn diagram circle of their lives, waiting for a braver moment that might never come.

Jimmy glared at him for a minute before giggling in that eerie way of his. "Me 'n Johnny, huh?" He tossed himself over the back of the couch and landed on top of his friend, rather heavily. "Shit, what a morning."

"Indeed," Edgar wheezed, gasping for the breath that had been knocked out of him.

And the strange, dreamlike moment of before was lost in the shuffle.


	11. Forgive Us Our Tresspasses

Satan looked at God, burning with distaste,

glared down at the paradise, and murmured: "What a waste."

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Forgive Us Our Trespasses

* * *

 

Edgar stretched his legs out over the bench, looking away from the brilliant white of the dome above him, like Earth's sky just after it rained… if you could call this a sky. He had first reached Hell through a cave wall, after all… perhaps they were underground? In any case, the light was starting to hurt his eyes, so he turned his attention back to Jimmy—who was sitting at the other end of the bench, staring at the traffic as it passed by.

Peace. There was something about this place that made him happy. Something about Hell. He was happy here in a way that he just wasn't in Heaven.

"Okay," Edgar said, "but in one version, it's actually a love story."

Jimmy looked over at him, dubious. "You gotta be kidding me."

"Hand to god, totally serious. It’s an Islamic account, I think. God made angels first, you know, before anyone else. He made them to love him, and they did love him, but Lucifer loved him more than any of them. More than anyone else ever has.”

Jimmy made a face, nose wrinkling. “The devil’s a fag?”

"What? No, well…” Edgar had a brief but terrible mental flash of the actual Devil, who he had met, looming behind him. He turned immediately, hair on the back of his neck raised, but when he looked there was nothing there. Just concrete and broken glass scattered over the ground. He chose his next words very carefully.

“Angels don't… have a sex…” Edgar said, sweating bullets. “Unless they really want to put the effort in? And God is a… er… hyperdimensional being, you might say. It's very difficult to explain this to someone who never went to church."

Jimmy snorted. "Did _too_ go, I just never paid attention."

Reading between the lines, here Edgar was flattered. It meant something to him that Jimmy would pay attention when he talked about it. Come to think of it, he had the impression Jimmy never paid to _anybody_ else. He wondered what would have happened if things had been different, if Jimmy had been one of his students? It might have made a difference, might have kept him from chasing after Johnny C—then again, it might have posed a couple really difficult moral issues. And legal. Maybe. He'd have to get Jimmy’s take about it later.

"What I was _trying_ to say," Edgar went on, mentally regrouping, "was that Lucifer loved God. A lot. And when God made humans, he told all his angels to bow down to them and worship. Only, Lucifer wasn't having any of that. God was like, 'Well?' and Lucifer was like, 'What the hell, God? These new mammals are terrible.' And God got all offended, even though Lucifer tried to explain it was just because he loved God so much that he couldn't bring himself to put anything else first."

Edgar sat back on the bench and watched the stillness of the sky, the cloudless birdless white abyss. He liked this story. He could sympathize with it.

"So, God gave him one last chance to change his mind, but Lucifer loved him too much to do that. He wouldn't bow. He couldn't love anyone more than God, and he couldn't lie about it. So God got all serious, and he said, 'Fine. Get out of my sight.' And you know when God says something like that, he's not screwing around. So Lucifer is banished to Hell, because the nature of _Hell_ is to be out of the sight of the person you love most. And he lives there, in Hell, and he survives... he survives by the memory of God telling him to get out of his sight."

Traffic rushed by, and the heat and light pooled across Edgar's body, gathering in the folds of his shirt. He liked that story because it seemed like the way love _should_ be, tragic and noble, unbent and untarnished.

"That's pretty fuckin' harsh," Jimmy finally said, staring off into the distance. "Somebody loves you that much, you oughta respect it."

Edgar frowned. He shrugged. "The version we learned when I was a kid went differently, of course. Dante's version. It mostly revolves around jealousy and pride, and betrayal… but mostly jealousy. Catholics are pretty obsessed with sin, and that always bothered me. Everything is a sin, sin this sin that, original sin and even the angels sin."

Down the street, a Volvo nearly took out two pedestrians.

"Carmela was catholic," Jimmy said, eventually. He was serious today; something heavy was on his mind.

"Your stepmother?"

Jimmy didn't shift, didn't seem to hear. He seemed both hard and delicate against the sky, like white marble, carved so thin it appears translucent. "Never understood how God could stand to be in the same church as Carmella, not unless he was deaf and blind, but I dunno now. Maybe she fooled him too. Just like she fooled everyone."

Edgar nodded, slowly. "Religious affiliation doesn't stop people from being horrible… sometimes it even helps."

"She used to tell me I was a sinner. Talked a lot about penance. Even now, I'm still not sure if she was right about any of it… or all of it..."

"Sometimes it seems like you can't escape it," Edgar mused. "All that anybody wants to talk about is how everyone else is doing wrong, messing up. Why don't we ever build each other up, instead of breaking each other down? It's not easy, but I believe…"

"Believe."

"Yes."

"Don't know?"

Edgar looked back at the teen—eternally a teen—only an arms length away. He could feel the seriousness of the conversation in his bones, could taste it on his tongue. And, just like he ever did, he loathed to take that last sip. Whatever lay at the bottom, it could only promise pain. 

"No. It's funny but, I've been to Heaven and to Hell, died, talked to the Devil and seen God, and feel like I know just as little right now as I ever did. Possibly less."

Jimmy gave a half-laugh, tired sounding. "Edgar Vargas, man of faith."

Man of faith.  _I envy your conviction._ Edgar slumped under the weight of a faith that seemed heavier with every unanswerable question. 

"You think we can change?" Jimmy asked him. "What's the point of building people up or tearing them down if they can't really change?"

Edgar frowned, watching the traffic lights change against the sky. "I think so."

"You think there's still time to make things right?" Jimmy asked him, "Even down here?"

The waxy edges of his eyeliner glittered in the daylight, like the morning after a stage show. Out in the light, in the mundane day, it was hard to recapture the frantic glamour of a dark underworld. The glitter scraped up off the sticky floor. The stage hands rolling spotlights away. All that remained was the all too fragile flesh.

"I'd like to think so," Edgar said. "But if there's one thing that I've learned, it's that nobody ever _gives_ you the answers. You have to figure them out alone."

Looking away, Jimmy reached for the switchblade Edgar knew he kept in his pocket. He could hear the muted click of it coming open and closed in Jimmy's hand.

"Alone, huh?"

And the city went on around them.

 

 

 

As Edgar had once noted, there were only two decent restaurants in Hell. One was the tex-mex place, and the other was a bagel shop.

Thought he didn't need to eat, there was something pleasantly distracting about the taste and weight of food, and with an eternity to kill, Edgar had become quite close to the staff of both places. Always be on good terms with your server, went Edgar's motto, since they're the ones handling your food.

Admittedly he was on better terms with the bagel place than the Taco Hell. He'd been in there with Jimmy a few too many times for the servers to be entirely comfortable with him, and they gave him the weirdest half-pity, half-suspicion kind of looks. But then, you had to count your blessings in the underworld, and anyone that didn't insult you or scream at you within the first minute of meeting you was a major blessing.

The sky a crisp white and the air hotter than usual, Edgar once again tumbled into the Bagel Shop with his usual grace, nodded to a patron jealously guarding his brunch in the dark corner, and placed an order. The new cashier had actually been one of his students, off the football team, during the first year he'd taught a psychology course, and the solid 'B' that had saved his semester average seemed to have earned Edgar an unusual modicum of respect. He smiled at the teen--forever a teen, now--and the kid kind of smiled back, the expression looking rusty from disuse.

Who would kill a kid barely old enough to order a product off a late night infomercial?

"How's the afterlife treating you?" he said, retrieving his takeout bag off the counter. He didn't understand why they wrapped his food in a paper bag if he was just going to unwrap it in a couple minutes, but hey, if it made them happy then he wasn't going to complain.

"Like Hell," the cashier shrugged. "Christ, and I thought I had it bad off _before_ the murder."

"It'll certainly put things in perspective," Edgar agreed, stepping to the side just in case someone else wanted to place an order. "So how's your girlfriend? Clarissa, wasn't it? Sorry to hear she died before they could crown her prom queen."

"She's not the same. Nothing's the same. She keeps yelling at me for hitting her every time we talk. I dunno what I'm gonna do."

"Maybe you should," Edgar suggested, "stop hitting her, for one thing."

The cashier gave him a wary look. What was his name, Preston? Was Preston his first name or his last name?

"Yeah but she won't stop ama--ema--emasculating me in front of the guys. How am I supposed to convince her of my manliness if I can't resort to violence?"

Edgar tried to keep his expression neutral. Boy, people were exhausting. Why did he decide he wanted to work with people for a living again?

"Have you considered that she might be doing that because she's angry about the whole _hitting her_ thing?"

Preston screwed up his face, painstakingly trying to unravel that difficult concept. Heaven forfend that other people should have feelings, naturally. "Why should I have to do what she wants first? Why can't _she_ do what _I_ want?"

Edgar frowned and put his elbows on the counter, effectively putting himself right in the kid's personal bubble—that was a leaf out of Jimmy's book, but he liked it and he liked the way it made people pay attention to what he was saying. Which was probably why Jimmy started doing it in the first place. They were both a little starved for attention, in their prior lives.

"Let me ask you a serious question," he said. "Do you love her?"

Looking away uncomfortably, Preston answered, "Well… yeah. I do. Just don't tell her I said that, okay?"

"I'm going to let you in on a secret," Edgar said, although it wasn't a secret of any kind. "Love is about taking care of another person. It's about sometimes putting what they want before what you want. You want her to be happy?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to be with her forever?"

"…Maybe?"

"Then you're going to have to think about what she wants. You can't keep someone with you by threatening them, and you certainly can't do it by _hitting_ them. You have to… make an effort. To make them happy."

Preston looked more nervous than doubtful now, glancing over his shoulder compulsively. Probably worried about a coworker overhearing this unmanly heart-to-heart. "You really think that'll work? She won't just run off?"

"Yes," Edgar said, "I think so. People _want_ to be happy."

Preston fidgeted in uncertain silence.

Edgar gave him an encouraging smile. "I'm not saying it'll be easy, but I know you can do it. Be aware, okay? Like, when you're about to yell or punch something, stop yourself. Be aware of what you're doing."

"Oh…" Preston said, "Alright. I can probably do that."

"No, I know you can."

The kid sighed and made a shooing motion. "You're crowding the register Mr. Vargas. Take your bagel and get out."

"Aye aye captain," Edgar said, snatching up the paper bag and heading for the door. "Remember what I said!" he called over his shoulder.

The glass door falling to cut off any reply. Edgar made his way down the street with his bagel disappearing one bite a time.

He believed, down to the core of his being, that human beings were basically good. Temperaments and events and environments conspired against them, but underneath all that, anyone could be saved with enough effort. Though it might take a _lot_ of effort. But if that wasn't true, then what was the point of any of it?

If you could just _make_ people empathize with each other, reach inside of them and click it on whether they liked it or not, Edgar firmly believed that the world would be a happier place. But baring that, you had to put things in perspective for whoever you were talking to—you had to give them reasons that actually make sense to them. Preaching doesn't get anything done. Right and wrong never changed a person's mind, but consequences could do the job.

There was an afternoon, during that brief warm period where his classroom was peaceful and full of laughter, when Damon had come to talk with him. Sitting on the top of a desk, legs crossed, Damon had asked him why he spent so much time on the hopeless cases, the Prestons and Clarissas of the world, who were never gonna learn and never gonna do right. You're wearing yourself out, he'd said, on lost causes.

But doctors don't visit the healthy, doctors visit the sick. And Edgar hadn't known how to explain that without making himself sound like a preacher in his own right.

A sad pang ran through Edgar's chest. Those days seemed a very long time ago… summer and fall, forever blockaded by the winter… But he shook the thoughts out of his head with practiced ease.

He had the strangest feeling that he was being watched. At times like these, now, he always thought first of the way his chest had looked with a gunshot wound in it. As much as he'd played if off with Jimmy, he was warier now. He turned a corner and waited just on the other side, pretending to tie his shoe. It was perfectly believable, too. His shoe _had_ been untied.

A man walked around the corner, and stopped short the moment he noticed Edgar. A dumb fish mouth and a nervous flick of the eyes told the dead man everything he needed to know.

"Hello," Edgar said, smiling faintly. He finished the knot and stood, patting the poor man on the shoulder as he passed. "Next time you're stalking someone, act a little more casual."

And then he went on along his way.

 

 

 

Edgar examined the apartment he had slowly reformed over the last few weeks, satisfied with his handiwork.

"And he saw what he had done, and he was pleased."

A snort from the direction of the couch.

Though, the crown molding was still missing, and the baseboards were in dire need of assistance. Oh, woe to the fate of the fashionable, forever surrounded by the needy and helpless to intercede. He wondered if Hell even sold that sort of thing.

"Haven't you messed with my apartment enough?" Jimmy asked him, the disembodied voice incredulous. "Fuck, the only spot you haven't done is my room."

"Because you won't let me in there," Edgar reminded him, idly, mentally estimating the amount of wood he would need. It was a pretty wide room.

"Damn straight I won't. A guy's room is the temple of his soul and shit."

Edgar turned back towards the centerpiece of the living room, now more interested in the man flopped over it than in renovation. Which was saying something.

" _Temple_ , Jimmy?"

"Hey," Jimmy said, "I can speak your language too. I just don't wanna."

He didn't doubt it, actually. Jimmy had always been smarter than he let on, with his callous attitude and his dismissive stubbornness, always listening but always listening to the _wrong_ thing. He'd read Dante and come up out of it talking about how Dante clearly wanted to sleep with Virgil. He'd read a whole swath of cantos, digested them, understood them, and then come up talking about who wanted to fuck whom. He was so smart and so dumb sometimes it made Edgar want knock his head against a wall.

"There _is_ one way," Jimmy drawled, "we could get you into my room..."

"Jimmy, _please_ ," Edgar said. "Can't you let that go?"

"Fuck no. You know you want me."

"You know you _want_ me to want you."

A lot of their conversations went like this.

Edgar went back to inspecting his handiwork. It was starting to feel like he lived here, lately, like this was his home too. This is where he came back to, not Heaven, not his fold-out chair. Hell. This apartment. It held this huge place in his mind, the place that was once filled with the house he grew up in. He'd gone up to Heaven earlier, to change, and found himself struck by how... out of place he felt there. It was like going to a distant relative's house: awkward and weird smelling.

Irrational, he knew, but he was sort of hurt by the fact that he'd never been in Jimmy's room. There was a symbolism there, not so much in that he thought of the apartment as his home, including that room, but that it was _Jimmy's_ room. And he hadn't been there.

"I want to see if they sell baseboards," Edgar spoke up, suddenly wanting to put as much distance between himself and that room in the back as possible, or else he might just break down the door once and for all. He was bad about inviting himself into places where he wasn't wanted, and he knew it.

"Dude, I'm coming with. You aren't getting away that easy."

"Jimmy, if I could get away that easy, you'd still be lying under a giant taco like a sad cripple."

They tumbled out into the street, bickering all the way. Edgar led them down Styx and west onto Cocytus Avenue, switching off onto smaller streets as they went, and he was pleased to find that he could now carry on a conversation without getting lost in the process.

"Where are we going anyways?" Jimmy asked, between shooting evil looks at pedestrians across the street.

"Lows," Edgar said. "They've got just about everything. And since the Wall-to-Wallmart is apparently the beating earthly heart of the devil incarnate, we're low on choices."

"Uh-huh. And where is this big bad Lows?"

Edgar pointed around the corner of the next building. "Just there."

The edge of the building was the nasty sort of brick that skinned up your hands like sandpaper, but Jimmy wrapped his fingers around it anyway and peered out of the alley. Edgar sighed. That boy had no sense of self preservation.

"Huh." Jimmy gave it a once over. "Okay yeah, that's pretty big, I admit it. But not so much bad."

Edgar sidestepped his friend to get a good look at it himself. Oh my. How many _stories_ did it have? He thought he could maybe see the top of the building, if he squinted… And it stretched out on either side as far down as he could see. Suddenly, his task was beginning to seem a bit daunting.

"The clerk at the Aberzombie did tell me it was evil," Edgar said, slowly, "I _think_ he was exaggerating, but still, don't underestimate it."

The front of the building did little to reinstall any confidence in Edgar, as it was covered in splatters of what he hoped was not blood. The two dead men shared a glance and, nervously, Edgar peered through the glass on the automatic door.

"It looks like a maze," he murmured. He really should have taken that clerk more seriously.

"Fuck," Jimmy replied, briskly. "Well, let's get the hell inside then."

Edgar caught his arm as he tried to march in. "Wait," he said, turning to look around them. "We need a… string or something. Like the Theseus myth, the labyrinth. Something to lead us back, or we could get permanently lost and I don't know about you, but I can think of a couple better ways to spend my eternity."

Letting go, he bounced over to a dumpster and checked inside, scowling at the filth. Ew. He was so going to need another manicure.

"Edgar-"

"Not now, Jimmy."

"Dude, I've got a—"

"Just hold on."

"No, man, I've got a… stringy… thing!"

As Edgar turned to squint at him, Jimmy reached into a pocket of his baggy black hoody and pulled out a hefty amount of thin white yarn.

Edgar raised an eyebrow. "How _did_ you fit that in there?"

"Do you want the string or what?"

"That's called a skein, Jimmy. A skein of yarn."

The boy squinted at him. "You would know."

Edgar snatched up the yarn and tied one end to the fire alarm, wondering what in the world a fire alarm was doing _outside_ the building rather than inside it. In any case, it made a good anchor. When he was certain the knot would hold, he pushed open the doors and ducked inside with Jimmy on his heels.

The scent of paint and sawdust filled every space below the gray ceiling, looming high above them. They entered the labyrinth between two shelves of lampshades, turned left and hoped for the best. White string trailed behind them, winding between walls and towering racks of doors that opened to nothing, looping back on itself for periodically after they returned from a dead end. Jimmy walked with his hands in pockets, eyes shifting for a glance between shelves—always a little paranoid, but now nigh on jumpy.

Evil Lows, huh? One of these days, Edgar had to learn when to take people at their word.

After countless tense minutes, and one particularly questionable looking rack of sharp and blunt tools—Edgar had to pull Jimmy away from those, which made him a little nervous—they found their way to a notable fork in the maze. On the left, darkness and gloom, and the unnerving buzz of dying florescent lights. On the Right, bright light and well worn linoleum.

The men looked at each other.

"Left." Jimmy pointed towards the darkness.

"I was going to say right," Edgar murmured. White string stretched out behind him.

"Trust me," Jimmy said, chewing his lip between his crooked teeth. He looked like he really did not want to go down that bright path.

Edgar wound the string around his fingers, tugging it absently. On the one hand, bright lights. On the other hand, creepy darkness. On the third hand, _Jimmy._ And he did trust Jimmy, in the end. Somehow, he didn't think the teen would be so serious if it were only a passing fancy, not if it really didn't matter.

"Alright," he sighed, "We'll take the road less traveled. I've heard it can make all the difference."

Jimmy grabbed his hand and pulled them down into the darkness.

"You know, Episcopal churches have labyrinths," Edgar said, mostly to fill the silence. "A few catholic too. Charlemagne? I think that was the one. In any case, they're thought to help you find God. This is a bit ironic, I suppose."

"Maybe God's got himself a summerhouse in the middle?" Jimmy suggested.

"You know, somehow I doubt that."

Edgar was a little worried about Jimmy now—they passed a display of nails and screws and the boy didn't bother with a single stupid joke. Maybe he shouldn't have brought him along, but then he had no idea it was going to be like this. He imagined he must have gotten so used to the way the rest of it worked elsewhere in Hell that he mistook familiarity for straightforwardness. It was so easy to forget that he was living in the underworld.

"Hey, _Edgar_ ," Jimmy hissed.

His name in Jimmy's mouth. He'd like to hear it again, and again after that. He could listen to that all day. But some other day, preferably outside and far away from creepy florescent lights that smelled like a mausoleum.

"What?"

"Do you hear… something?"

Edgar stopped, handed the yarn to Jimmy, and listened. There was a kind of skittering sound, yes, somewhere up ahead, reminiscent of… rats.

Edgar was not what you'd call fond of rats.

He turned back to Jimmy. "Er, so, are you scared of rodents?"

"Uh, not exactly. Why? Please don't tell me—"

"Shh! Did you see that?"

Something _big_ shifted quickly in the darkness. The lights above them flickered on every so often, split seconds of almost blinding light, like lightning without the thunder—absolute murder on the night vision. He couldn't see more than a vague outline, but it was _way_ too big to be a regular rat and it almost looked more like—

"Oh Christ! Rat people!"

The nearest monster hissed at him from the shadows, beady eyes flashing. The elongated face twitched, skeletal hands scratched the floor, and ew, positively ancient looking clothes fluttered on misshapen bodies.

Jimmy looked like he might be sick. "You gotta be fucking _kidding_ me."

" _Turn back,"_ the rat-creature hissed, skittering a little closer. _"You will be lost here forever.._."

Edgar squeezed the yarn tighter. Why did all his little ventures turn into such horrible messes? "Uh, ha, I… look, not to bother you but I really just want to buy some supplies, really, there's nothing awful or dramatic about it."

" _You will be lost,"_ the rat creature repeated, blinking. " _Th_ _ere is no return from the labyrinth, no escape…"_

"Er, actually, you see I have this string here, and—"

" _Nooo_ _escape. You will remain here forever, just like us."_

A second rat creature edged forward into Edgar's range of vision. Okay, well, they didn't seem dangerous at least, and that was a positive development as far as he was concerned. And, they seemed like they meant well.

" _Trapped_ ," the first creature moaned, " _just_ _like us. You will become like us_."

"No, really—"

" _I_ ," the second creature wailed, "was once a _man_ …"

Jimmy squinted in the monster's direction, eyeing her. "But… you're a woman."

The female blinked at him.

"Look," Edgar went on, "we just want to find the help desk, if it's not too much trouble. Do you know how to get there?"

The two creatures exchanged a glance. The first one replied, " _I suppose_ …"

In the end, their concession consisted of a string of left-right-right-left directions that could confuse an experienced mountaineer. It was a very, very lucky thing that Edgar had a decent spatial intelligence and, as the monsters spoke, was already constructing a sort of map in his head as best he could. They'd taken too many turns up until then for his map to handle, but the ones ahead—not too many, five or so—could be recalled with some luck.

The female rat looked up at Jimmy, a gruesome expression that might be called a smile across her face. " _When you become a rat-person too_ ," she hissed, " _you are welcome to share my nest…_ "

Edgar glared. "Ahem. We'll be going now. _Right Jimmy_?"

"Uh, right?"

Edgar wrapped viselike fingers around his wrist and pulled him off into the darkness, away from the simpering rat-people.

"Thanks for the offer!" Jimmy called back over his shoulder, grinning.

 _Oh,_ Edgar thought, _don't look so pleased with yourself._

As the rathole disappeared behind them, Jimmy turned his attention to the man in front of him, grinning—no, smirking—even harder than before. Edgar thought about letting go, but his fingers didn't want to cooperate. Well, whatever. At least they wouldn't get separated.

"You really _do_ wanna keep me," Jimmy said, all teeth and glittering eyes.

The lights flashed on for a split second, blinding them both.

Edgar grunted. "So I have bad taste. Thank you for informing me."

"Don't worry 'bout it. When we turn into hideous rat-people, _you_ can share _my_ nest. 'kay?"

"Why do I get the feeling that I've just experienced the most romantic moment of your life?"

"Don't you go around accusing me of romance now. I'm a killer. Bad to the fucking _bone_."

Edgar considered him, heart sinking just the littlest bit. "No," he said, "I wouldn't dare."

This was another thing they always seemed to be talking around. Edgar was almost  _certain_ that Jimmy liked men, because otherwise why would he hang around that damn club all the time? And he thought--he  _thought_ Jimmy might be attracted to him, maybe, or else why did they keep finding themselves in those lightning rod moments, those quiet tense dreams, gone like smoke at the first flinch? If it was something else, Edgar couldn't begin to parse it. If it was something else, he was terrified of breaching that sanctum--terrified of all of it--

Sometime later, the dynamic duo found themselves standing between a shelf of mace and a shelf of turpentine, contemplating a large yellow sign reading 'help desk'. The lights were buzzing brightly now, and there was about a foot of string left on the skein.

"Think this is the center?"

Edgar tied his end of string around the side of one shelf. "I'd say so."

Something rumbled beyond the opening, and the two men shared a look. Whatever it was, it couldn't be much worse than rat-people, or that giant cockroach they ran into three turns back. Edgar had nearly passed out at seeing that one.

They entered the Labyrinth center warily, keeping close to the shelves behind them. The help desk sat in the middle of the space like the inner sanctum of a temple, and behind it a snoring man (so that was the rumbling) whose feet were propped up on the desktop. Jimmy took one look at him and lost interest, reorienting on the wall display of elaborate power tools, but Edgar frowned and tugged on the man's boot. Nice boot, western style but with subtle patterns worked into the leather.

"What?" The stranger started, opening one eye. The nameplate on his desk read _Bondye._

"Er, hello," Edgar said, tapping his fingers nervously. "Do you have a minute?" he asked, choosing to ignore the fact that Mr. Bondye had been sleeping when they walked in.

"Got a lot of minutes," the stranger replied, something like a Caribbean accent in his voice. He waved with pink palms and almost black fingers. "Got all the minutes in the world."

Edgar glanced at the nameplate again. He could not for the life of him figure out how to pronounce that. The dark man noticed and laughed.

"Bondye," he said, pronouncing it 'bon-dyee'. "Not as hard as it looks."

"Oh," Edgar replied. He snuck a glance at Jimmy—distracted by something sharp and electrical—and proceeded to get terribly off track. "What language is that, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Haitian Creole. Pretty language, ugly place. Visits are painful, but sometimes you just have to let people have their own lives, even when it gets ugly."

"Ah," Edgar said. "Family problems. You have a big one?"

"Enormous," Bondye said, with a wink. "And they're all trying to kill each other. I do my best not to get involved."

"Even if you could do something about it?"

"You can always _force_ someone to do what you want," Bondye shrugged, "if you're willing to go far enough. Doesn't mean you should. Doesn't mean it would help, either, in the long run."

Edgar decided that he rather liked this man. He had a soothing way of talking. He probably never found himself in a conversation he didn't know how to carry on. "Then, hypothetically," Edgar countered "when _is_ it alright to get involved?"

Bondye raised a brow. "Never. You can't make decisions for people. You can't force a man to do something he didn't choose for himself. Got to change the _mind_ , or the cycle just starts again. And nobody can change a man's brain but the man himself."

Edgar thought about that, sneaking another look at Jimmy. "You know, you're already the best conversationalist I've met in this city, and I've barely been here a minute. How did you end up here?"

"In Hell, you mean? Or at this here help desk?"

"Either. Both."

"Ah." Bondye slid his boots off the counter and sat forward, brown eyes bright. Edgar concluded he was rather handsome in an abstract sort of way. "Well, as for Hell, I made a couple choices in my time, and it turned out I chose wrong. I'm at this desk because people are always coming to me for help, and it seemed like I might as well make a job of it."

"I can't imagine you get many people in here, though. Why put a labyrinth in a Lows anyways? It seems silly to me."

"Lot of things must seem silly to you, then. Best way to learn is to find it out for yourself, I say, and that's the point of a labyrinth. Think on your feet. So, what would you be looking for, mister?"

"Oh, right. Ah, I've been remodeling Jimmy's apartment a little bit, and I was trying to find the aisle with the baseboards because, you know, those apartments are criminally Spartan."

Bondye pushed his chair back and stood, smiling. "You'll find them about two turns from the main entrance."

Edgar's knees nearly went out. "You're kidding me."

"No, I am not. Now, pull your friend away from those hacksaws and finish your epic journey."

Nodding, Edgar strode over to Jimmy and pried his fingers off one particularly monstrous looking machine. Jimmy glared at him and he glared back, and then they both turned away from the display at once. Edgar glanced back at the man behind the desk.

"Come back and visit me," Bondye suggested. "You don't even need to drag your friend along. I'd be glad to see you."

Jimmy looked back now, too, scowling. "Thanks but he'll pass, _right Edgar?"_

"Er—"

" _Right_. Let's go."

Jimmy dragged Edgar away, leaving a laughing stranger behind them.

And there was something… familiar about him, if only Edgar could put his finger on it. Something ineffable.

 

 

Jimmy had something on his mind. In his pocket there was a rhythmic push against the fabric, his thumb running over the edge of that knife he always carried. Edgar paused at the crosswalk and shifted the plywood hefted over his shoulder, pushing sweat from his forehead with the back of the hand carrying the sample paint can. Did he used to sweat down here? 

The little plastic bag with the replacement paintbrushes swung in Jimmy's grip. 

"Something on your mind?" Edgar said, regarding the damp skin of his hand with suspicion.

"Next time some joker comes at you with a weapon," Jimmy said, "what're you gonna do about it?"

"Get shot?" Edgar guessed. He switched his grip on the paint can to alleviate the aching in his palm.

Jimmy made a dissatisfied noise. 

"Look," he said, but then said nothing more.

Edgar looked. Carrying the one crumply bag of brushes, his fingers twitching in his pocket, Jimmy seemed like a man on the edge of a jump. With a deep breath, a sigh over teeth, Jimmy drew his hand out of his pocket. The pocket knife, a switchblade, sat glinting in his palm.

Edgar gave him a puzzled glance.

"It ain't much," Jimmy said, flicking it open with absent ease. "It's not one of mine. If I could make you a knife--shit, if I could make you one like I used to do, it'd be six inches long and serrated, maybe with a curve tip? You'd need a sheath for it, but it'd be cool as hell."

"Okay?" Edgar said.

Jimmy flipped it closed and then held it out, the handle caught between two fingers. "Keep it. I've got more."

Edgar looked down. Something hot and achy bloomed in the hollow of his throat, something that felt almost like tears when he swallowed it down. He reached out and gently took the gift.

"I don't wanna see anything happen to you," Jimmy said, "not on my account."

But Edgar didn't hear him. He was too busy turning the knife over in his hands, watching the light glance off its creamy ivory handle, mapping every little pin and hinge. Nobody had given him anything in a very long time. Not since his mother died. Not since he lived in that house in the suburbs, before the scent of disinfectant that never seemed to come out.  

His fingers trembled against the ivory. 


	12. I Have Heard the Eternal Footman Snicker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [would you like to see the original vision of the ballroom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrOeGCJdZe4)?  
>  Anyway, this is where shit gets gritty so I hope everybody paid attention to the tags when they started reading this fic. This chapter has in depth discussion of sexual assault and parental incest, it's a rollercoaster, it's all together in one place instead of spread out over two chapters like in the original version.

"I'm not locked up in here with _you-_  
you're locked up in here with me!"

 _-Watchmen,_ Alan Moore

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

I Have Heard the Eternal Footman Snicker

* * *

 

Night was falling, but not quite as usual. Normally, Al popped over to a corner of reality during the 'night'. Edgar had asked him where, once, and the only thing Al had been able to say for sure was that they spoke Russian.

Tonight though, although the sky turned dark like a white shirt soaking up blood, the eye remained. Edgar leaned under the eave of an abandoned building at the edge of the inhabited town, drinking a bottle of wine. It was not his usual look, drinking alone in public from a bottle in a paper bag, but the first bottle he'd accidentally smashed on the floor of the liquor store as he ducked to avoid a stray shot in an armed robbery earlier had smelled lovely, so he had splurged. He'd thought of saving it and offering some to Jimmy, but something told him that wine wasn't really the man's cup of alcoholic beverage. But when the All Seeing Eye burst into spontaneous flames, Edgar had to question exactly what _kind_ of wine he'd been drinking. The bottle was still half-full, but he turned it over and poured the rest of it out just to be safe.

He'd better get back into the inhabited bit of the city. It wasn't safer, exactly, but at least he'd know if he was hallucinating or not. He wasn't drunk--barely even buzzed, actually--but he simply could not remember what this reminded him of, no matter how he wracked his brain.

As he returned through the looming cityscape, he couldn't help but glance back at the fiery thing, a strange facsimile of a true sun, and wonder if it was painful for Al. It didn't look fun.

Up ahead was a corner store that he'd found Jimmy in more than a few times--apparently he'd been banned from most of the others in operation, so it wasn't as if he had much choice. Edgar had a feeling that he'd find more than chips inside, so he popped in for a quick check. Somehow, he could always find Jimmy when he wanted to, and unfortunately he could always end up _found_ when he didn't want to be. If they weren't so good at stumbling across one another, in a city this chaotic, he supposed they might never meet again.

"Ah," he sighed, spotting a head of spiky black hair by the cooler. He snuck over, managed to get right up behind Jimmy, and jabbed a finger into his shoulder.

"I didn't steal it! She was my sister! I swear I used a condom!"

"Er..." Edgar grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "Hi. You wanna run that one by me again?"

Jimmy relaxed immediately. "Oh, Edgar. It's you. I was just covering all my bases, that's all."

They could be here all night if Edgar kept trying to work out a scenario in which all of those excuses would be necessary, and they really did not have all night. Instead he trotted over to the double doors and pushed one open, gesturing to the lurid sky beyond. "Al caught fire. Any idea what's going on?"

Jimmy squinted at him. "You mean your creepy eye friend?"

"Yeah."

"Um... give me a second," Jimmy muttered, holding up a finger. He reached inside the freezer and pulled out a beer, took a drink, and said, "Wasn't it on that invitation we found? Something about, the eye shall blaze yadda yadda party yadda middle English yadda the Devil's house?"

"Oh." Edgar rewound the last month or so in his head, until the phrase _cold blood_ pinged in his memory. "You know, I think you're right."

As they headed for the door, Edgar noticed that there wasn't anyone at the counter to ring them up. He was about to stop and wait for the salesman to reappear, but Jimmy kept going without him.

"Aren't you going to pay for that?" Edgar asked, already knowing the answer.

"No," Jimmy called back, holding the door open now. "Aren't you coming?"

Edgar sighed and dashed after, ducking through the door as Jimmy let it fall closed behind them. Jimmy stood there on the curb, as if he was waiting for Edgar to catch up, making a big show of inspecting the hellfire sky.

"...So," Jimmy said, "You're not gonna make me stay behind and pay anyway?"

Edgar looked at him sideways. "Do you want me to?"

For a moment, Jimmy looked like he wasn't really sure. "...No. You just don't like it when I shoplift. Don't you wanna, like, fix me?"

Edgar's sneaker skidded to a stop on the concrete. "Fix you?"

Jimmy turned back to him. The drink in his hand was already speckled with condensation, slippery in his tight fist. It sloshed, slightly, as Jimmy said, "That's why you hang out with me, right? I'm your fixer-upper project."  

Edgar shook his head. "Jimmy, if I didn't like you the way you are, I wouldn't spend so much time with you."

"...Oh."

Still not quite able to look Jimmy in the eye, Edgar cleared his throat. "So anyways, Al is on fire. This means there's a party, apparently?"

Jimmy fiddled with the label of his drink. "At the Devil's house."

They walked down the street, glancing over their shoulders occasionally, heading nowhere in particular. Edgar usually liked these moments, and he got the feeling that Jimmy liked them too. Otherwise, wouldn't he have said something about it? When Jimmy disliked something, the man wasn't exactly quiet about it. In fact, you usually couldn't shut him up if you tried. Edgar cleared his throat and made a bid for lighthearted and casual.

"You know, I'd rather like to see Pandemonium. And I haven't been to a real party since I was in college."

"I'd like some free booze myself," Jimmy agreed, then glanced at his companion. "And a chance to get laid."

Edgar scoffed in a friendly joking sort of way, like he figured he was supposed to. But _if_ he caught Jimmy wandering off with any pretty girls (pretty boys either), he was going to end that faster than you could say "buzz kill". After all, she ought to know what she was getting into, right? And it had nothing to do with Edgar generally disliking the idea of Jimmy sleeping with anyone, period. Why should that bother him? Jimmy was an adult. "For your sake," he said, "I hope you _do_ use a condom."

"Worried about my safety, you little fag? That's so cute."

"Worried about the poor girl, you can rot for all I care."

"Oh, I'm hurt, really. And here I was gonna make you my plus one."

Edgar stopped again, confused. "You were going to take _me?"_

"Well, duh. Relax, we're still going together, I was just kidding. Lighten up, man."

Edgar said nothing, pondering the implication of that statement. He did very much like the fact that Jimmy assumed they were going together, and the fact that he wasn't inviting a real date along, because damn _that_ would be awkward. And if Jimmy got drunk enough, maybe they could dance and hopefully Jimmy wouldn't remember in the morning.

"So which way to Pandemonium?" Jimmy went on.

"Er... East, I think. It said, 'currently located east of each city'... funny to think of a castle that just migrates around..."

Jimmy glanced over to a small demon standing at a bus stop, the little round kind with the pitchfork tails. "Yeah, funny."

With no idea which way was East and which was West, they picked a direction at random and walked that way. They talked as they went, underneath the streetlights that came on one by one down the ribcage of the road. Despite having no formal training, if you could get Jimmy interested in the topic he turned out to have a surprisingly analytical mind. He had no patience for collegiate tomes, but he could digest and dissect anything you took the time to explain to him with little difficulty. They often fell into the form of a debate on these walks, Edgar explaining the tenets of some belief, Jimmy playing Devil's Advocate to undermine them.

Jimmy's comment about being fixed still unnerved him. He felt guilty and raw under the scrape of that one offhand comment, because on occasion, Edgar had the strangest feeling that he _was_ domesticating Jimmy in some way, as if the immeasurable period of their friendship had smoothed out certain rough edges. He had no idea how it was done, but he remembered Jimmy when they'd first met, Jimmy who never held doors open, or thought twice about dressing Edgar down, or talked philosophy. Something subtle had changed along the way.

 _Do you need to be fixed?_ he wondered, watching the condensation that remained on Jimmy's lip long after the can was taken away. _Do you want to be fixed?_

As they walked, Edgar brushed the pocket where he had Jimmy's knife stashed. It was special to him, and he kept it on him at all times now, even though he knew absolutely nothing about using weapons. It wasn't about safety, at least, not that kind. He liked to remember the feeling it had left him with, that jolt of joy and wonder, that sadness. If only Edgar could recall exactly what Jimmy had said when he put it in his hand.

Slowly, the buildings grew fewer and farther between, until they found themselves at an expanse of chain link fence. On the other side lay a field of fire--burning rock, more specifically, probably sulfur and brimstone by the smell--and beyond that, a palace in bricks of ebony and garnet.

The men glanced at each other.

"Is he for real?" Jimmy muttered, squinting up at the hulking monster of a palace.

"It is a little dramatic," Edgar agreed, looking for a gate.

There was one off to the right, and Edgar pulled Jimmy along towards it. It sprouted from the fence in freakish juxtaposition--carved granite skulls with glowing eye sockets surrounded by grade A south side chain link. The dead man sighed.

They ventured under the frame and down the path, wary of the hellfire on either side. For his part, Edgar was paranoid about tripping over one of those stones and rolling into the lawn where his soul would probably roast for all eternity. Despite the fear, he couldn't help but feel a bit fond of the whole thing. It was so overblown. So like Hell.

The great door loomed up over them as they approached, perfectly medieval and about five human men high. Jimmy whistled. It swung open as they came close enough to touch, and out stepped a severe woman preoccupied with her clipboard. When she looked up from it, the elegant curve of her mouth and the tight strain of her high ponytail clicked in Edgar's memory.

"Damned Elize?" he said, squinting at her.

Her pupiless eyes narrowed on him. "Oh," she said, in a complete monotone, "it's you."

She flipped through her list with the flick of a blood red nail. She was as sharp in her suit and starched collar as ever. "You're not supposed to be here," she said, glancing up at him sharply.

Jimmy cut in, sweeping an arm around Edgar's waist and pulling him close. Edgar stiffened in his grip, torn between pleasure and embarrassment. "Relax," Jimmy said, "he's my date. I get a date right?"

Elize look suspiciously between Jimmy and her list, her heavy eyelids drawing even narrower. "Technically," she said.

"So we're good then," Jimmy said, squeezing Edgar's middle. All Edgar's organs squirmed under his touch in a not-entirely-bad way.

Elize jabbed a nail into the paper. "This is the millennial anniversary of the Fall of Man," she said. "It is the _one_ night when the damned can be free of desire. _He,"_ she pointed sharply at Edgar, "doesn't belong here. He's already _got_ his satisfaction. What he needs to do is go back upstairs and sit his ungrateful ass down."

Edgar winced. He didn't _feel_ very satisfied, especially not up there with the litter and bad lumbar support. "I just want to go to the party," he said, pressing his palms together in supplication. "I'm not hurting anybody." 

"You're irritating me," Elize said, "and you're wearing tighter pants than the last time I saw you."

"I'm," Edgar said, looking down at himself, "I'm sorry?"

Elize sucked a breath in over her teeth, fingertips rolling _tap tap tap_ over the side of the clipboard. "I'm going to let you in," she said, at last, "but only because there's ten minutes before my shift is over and then I can stop thinking about how much I'd like both of you to raw me right here on this doorstep."

"Oh," Edgar said, eyes wide.

"Works for me," Jimmy said, and with a palm flat to Edgar's back, pushed his friend forward. Edgar caught the first second of Jimmy miming _call me_ to the entity with the clipboard, before he was through the doorway.

Edgar ducked inside, followed by Jimmy, and they ventured down the ornate hall. Chinese rugs muffled the fall of their feet, and Edgar had to stop Jimmy from stealing a decoration more than once. Finally, Edgar slapped his hands away and kicked the whole rolling table back down the hall, leaving Jimmy caught between chasing after it and following his date.

"He's not gonna miss one stuffed dodo bird, Edgar!" Jimmy called after him. After a moment of agonizing decision, he rushed after Edgar's retreating form.

Edgar kept him away from the decorations religiously. If he tried to snatch one of those vases, Edgar suspected that they'd both get a better idea of whatever had befallen the charred body that had been tucked neatly under the table, before Edgar kicked it away. He tried to focus them on the insultingly large and obvious signs posted down the length of each wall, and pushed on.

"Neon arrows? Is he _serious_?"

"They are a bit unorthodox."

"It looks like fuckin' Las Vegas in here!"

"Yes, well."

They did, however, lead to the main ballroom. Or so the large glowing green sign told them. Edgar took a moment to examine his clothing--oh, maybe he should have changed first, jeans and a t-shirt didn't exactly scream 'ballroom attire'--and then Jimmy's, and then to gently freak out at the last minute like he always did. Jimmy was nice enough drag him on by the collar, and then, with one last breath, they pushed open the door.

"Ah," hummed a familiar dark voice. "Look who's come to join the party! _Do_ come in, Edgar, Mmy. It's a pleasure to see you again."

A light, impossibly warm and creamy, burst through the doorway in blinding rays.

Edgar blinked up into the grinning face of Satan, resplendent in glowing crimson robes which appeared to be lit by hellfire, and said, "Hello, Señor Diablo."

Beyond the looming figure the ballroom was visible, an endless chamber of gothic architecture that was lovely, but seemed perhaps more suited to a chapel than a ballroom. Spinning couples covered the floor, more than he could count, women dressed in delicate gowns that swept the floor, men in jackets Edgar had never seen outside of illustrations. Peering closer, he looked for… yes, there… every one of them wearing masks. One couple whirled past him, in a flash of golden buttons and porcelain eyeslits, like a vision from a dream. Or a nineteenth century period piece.

Señor Diablo noticed his appraising stare and chuckled. "One of my favorite centuries, actually. The industrial revolution, the imperialist regimen, the ever widening gaps between one man and the next—Oh for the good old days when an orphan could lose a hand working with a sewing machine! Oh yes, my people outdid themselves on the eighteen-hundreds."

Edgar looked back at the crowd. He noticed, for the first time, violins and drums in the air— "You're not telling me every citizen of Hell just happened to have ballroom attire from the last century tucked in the back of their closets?"

"Don't be silly, my dear man. It's a spell, and a rather elementary one at that. Most of them showed up in the same ridiculous rags as yourselves."

Edgar and Jimmy looked back at each other. _Rags_ was a bit harsh.

"I am _not_ wearing the dress," Jimmy concluded, crossing his arms.

When the devil turned his attention to Edgar, the older man squeaked, "Me neither!"

"I was _going_ to let you take your pick," Señor Diablo replied, rolling his eyes. "But have it your way. I shall satisfy whatever shreds of masculinity you have managed to retain."

And just like that, the jeans and t-shirt became a black velveteen jacket with a pocket watch. Edgar poked at the breast of it, surprised at how plush and soft it was under his finger. And there was a mask in his hand, waiting to be secured around his face.

"Neat," Jimmy crowed, inspecting his new, complementary threads. The flared corners of his collar made him look awfully dashing, in a roguish sort of way.

"It's beautiful," Edgar said, looking up.

"Well I can't have you not matching," Señor Diablo said, hardly one to be accused of a good deed. "And besides, you have a big night ahead of you."

Alarm bells went off in Edgar's head, and he sent a suspicious look the devil's way. "Why?"

"Just enjoy the evening, Mr. Vargas. I know you will."

Edgar frowned as the Lord of Hell dissipated into shadows. "I hate it when he disappears like that."

Jimmy shrugged. "He's the Devil. He's supposed to be a jackass." Then he turned to the mask in his hands, flipping it over to examine the intricate detail—gold filigree in the pattern of tiny scales, and twisted, short horns from the temples. "Does it look kinda… reptile-ish to you?"

"Reptilian." The whole thing flashed golden in the light. "Most masks are inspired by animals, you know. Perhaps a dragon?"

"Sweet," Jimmy said. "What's yours?"

In truth, Edgar was a bit hesitant to check. If it looked absurd, as it probably would, he'd still have to wear it. He didn't much like the idea of that. He could look stupid enough on the dance floor without stupid masks to help. Still, though, he turned it over and gave it a look.

"Nice feathers," Jimmy snorted, examining the patterns painted around the eyes, "But where's the beak?"

"Not here, obviously," Edgar replied, a little relieved.

"Boring!" Jimmy said, and slapped on his own disguise. After a moment, Edgar followed suit.

"Well," Edgar mused, tying the ribbon at the back of his head, "I have no idea how to dance like that… and I'd bet my foldout chair that you don't either." He was pleased to find that the mask held his glasses in place, almost as if it had been made with him in mind. But then, it had, hadn't it?

"Can you really see _me_ taking ballroom dancing lessons?"

"Didn't think so," Edgar sighed. "I really don't like the idea of getting out there with some stranger and then having no idea what to do. Unlike you, I don't enjoy looking like a complete idiot—"

"You're just jealous."

"—So I think," he went on, trying not to sound too eager now, "that we had both better start the night dancing with each other. Less embarrassment if somebody screws up."

"Good for me," Jimmy shrugged, a grin tugging the corner of his lips. "C'mon, let's see what we're workin' with."

Jimmy grabbed his hand, as usual—as if Edgar wouldn't have followed him anyway—and pushed through the press of people. Looking up as they went, Edgar found himself dazed by the towering arches, the stone gargoyles peering over the edges of the ceiling. As far as they eye could see, there were only pillars and arches on endless arches, an arcade with no walls. And that was silly because he'd just come in through the door, but when he turned there was no door in sight.

By the time Jimmy pulled them to a stop, Edgar's vision was spinning and he was feeling just a little bit overwhelmed. He looked back to Jimmy, who was taking his other hand with supreme concentration, dark-rimmed eyes catching what little light filtered in through his mask.

"Who's gonna lead?" Jimmy asked, hands on Edgar's hands.

"Can't we both?" Edgar said, his mind filled with stone carvings and stained glass.

"Uh… I don't think it works like that."

Edgar shook himself, refocusing on the task before them. His hand seemed so dark in Jimmy's pale grip, almost a stranger to him. "Alright. Then, you can lead."

With a nod, Jimmy slid one hand around his companion's waist and murmured, "We're gonna look so stupid…"

Edgar grinned at that. He moved his other hand, still conjoined with Jimmy's, away from them, the way he'd seen the other couples do. He leaned in. "Move."

The step that Jimmy took seemed more startled than deliberate, but it was in the right direction—which Edgar followed, and then another step, and then there was a pattern to it, a rhythm was not so unfamiliar as he had expected, and then it only felt natural to turn, spin, step again…

Strange, because he hadn't been aware of the music when they started, but it must have been there—playing a piece he'd never heard before--the sounds of drums from no visible bandstand. The twirling, bowing multitude moved gracefully with the music, but there was nothing classical about the rhythm of it. How had he missed that? The drum beats boomed through his frame, all encompassing, perfectly matched to the movements of the dance.

Jimmy cleaned up nicely, he decided, eyeing his partner. His spiky hair managed to look dashing as it fell over that mask, and the jacket complemented his skinny frame. Each pass brought them closer, like the spiral of a whirlpool. Dark-rimmed eyes flashed as the light caught them. Jimmy's hand on his was like fire, scorching his fingertips and sending boiling blood back through his veins. The arm around his waist, the hand over his spine the same—a rush of blood burning, boiling, until only air was left by the heat.

With a smooth ease that could only be more infernal magic, Jimmy lifted his arm and Edgar followed, the tails of his coat twirling out behind him as he spun.

"This is weird," Jimmy whispered, leaning in so that his lips almost touched Edgar's ear. The older man tried not to shiver.

_You feel it too?_

"Usually," Jimmy went on, "I'm following your lead. I'm not used to this."

"That's news to me," Edgar said.

Under the mask, dark and gold and expressionless, Jimmy's lip quirked up in a smile that could have been anything from knowing to melancholic. "I feel like I'm always trying to keep up with you," he said. "Like you wanna make me beg for it."

Even the devil's magic couldn't stop Edgar from stumbling at that, barely catching himself on Jimmy's leading arm. His fingers bore down tight. "Beg," he said, "for what?"

"Come on, _you_ know." Jimmy grinned beneath his mask as the dance took another spin, and added, "Or maybe you really _do_ wanna hear me beg for it. I can play that game too."

Jimmy suddenly stopped in the middle of the floor, the countless swirling partners around them turning the floor into a kaleidoscope of silk and satin. The grip around Edgar's waist disappeared. Still grinning, Jimmy released his hand and took a step back, still in those lovely, distinctive boots, magic or no. The black rubber treads squeaked against mahogany flooring. 

"You lead," Jimmy said. He opened his arms and stood in the middle of the floor, waiting.

Edgar glanced down at himself for just a moment, reminding himself that he actually _did_ have a body and a will that would move it. He couldn't quite make himself touch Jimmy, as if there was an invisible line that he had been toeing all along and he just couldn't quite cross it. But then Jimmy tilted his head, just so, and then, well, and then it didn't seem very nice to leave him _hanging_ …

Fingers intertwined with fingers, Edgar's hand finding the small of his partner's back, the ridges and curvature of the spine pressing into him even through the jacket. And then, with a step, the dance resumed.

Edgar glanced around at the other couples, seeing all variations of the same two expressions. All men with pleased, confident, sometimes roguish smiles—all women with shy, trusting, sometimes coquettish faces. He recognized them all from the covers of a hundred cheap romance novels, the kind whose plots were all identical, whose characters spoke the same lines in the same flat way, and whose "eternal love" usually consisted of "feeling something" whenever the man walks into the room. How many times had Edgar _felt_ something when Jimmy walked into a room? Could he keep count? 

He looked at Jimmy now, probing at his expression. Jimmy was almost smirking, his movements proving that he could turn even a waltz into something lewd, and they both knew that he could never be called shy, any more than he could be called trusting. Though it might be nice if he would trust Edgar just a _little_ more often.

Was that supposed to be love? One person to lead, one person to follow? And what the hell would a man like either of them know about love, anyway?

"Questions, Mr. Vargas?"

Edgar looked to his left, startled, only to find Señor Diablo dipping a woman—a pretty blond woman with a large silver cross around her neck. She smiled at him. He stared at her.

"Er, yes," Edgar replied, adjusting his hand around Jimmy's waist. Suddenly, this felt just a little bit inappropriate. "Why is everyone here so… serene?"

The devil grinned hugely, an expression dreadful on his skull-like face. "You might have noticed how all the people appear rather dull, also."

Edgar nodded.

"That's my little party favor. Tonight, for the celebration of my finest work, I have returned them all to the paradise which was lost. What you see around you are a hundred faces of Adam and Eve, before the tree of wisdom. All simple, all without sin, all unaware that they posses free will. Living archetypes, if you will."

"It was very nice of Juan," the pretty blond woman said, smiling up at Señor Diablo. "It took some arguing—oh, you should have heard him debating it with the Lord, it was quite the spectacle—but just look at them! They look so unhappy most of the time, it's nice to see them more comfortable."

"You too may join them," Diablo said, fixing his gaze on Jimmy. "If you wish. Heavenly satisfaction is only a punchbowl away."

Jimmy snorted. "Looks more like being doped up to me."

In perfect synchronization, both couples spun and parted.

"He has a point," Edgar said. "They really don't seem to have any sentient thoughts at all."

Señor Diablo just kept grinning. "It amuses me that you think they ever did."

Then the crowd separated them, and Jimmy and Edgar were once again amongst a sea of Adams and Eves, all glittering and mechanical.

"That was… weird." Edgar realized that he had stopped moving.

"Yeah." Jimmy seemed to realize the same thing. "Wanna get a drink?"

"God yes." 

The punch table seemed to find _them_ , unfolding out between two of the great stone pillars and covered from end to end with various bottles and cups. Edgar examined a few, surprised to see everything from vodka to mead in attendance. There looked like milk-beer a couple spaces away, but he was kind of scared to touch it.

"Shit, that's awesome!" Jimmy cried, dashing over to what looked like a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Snatching himself a whole bottle of wine (1864, private vineyard), Edgar asked, "What is it?"

Jimmy held up a bottle and shook it enthusiastically, "I can't find this shit _anywhere_!"

"Your cup runneth over," Edgar replied, taking a good swig of some very old wine. Hot damn, he could get used to that. This bottle was officially his now, backwash and all.

"Uh…" Jimmy started. He looked over the bottle at Edgar's lips with a hint of surprise. "You, like, a closet alcoholic or something?"

"No," Edgar said, and then, "Well. I did spend a lot of time drinking alone those last couple months on Earth. But it's a party, Jimmy, and 1864 was a good year."

"Être juste," agreed a voice from under the table.

Jimmy and Edgar exchanged a look, and, a little hesitant, lifted up the tablecloth to peer underneath. A very short man waved drunkenly at them, wearing a large, blue hat and holding a half-empty bottle of grey goose vodka. Edgar blinked at him, trying to figure out why the hat looked so familiar.

"I once 'ad a bottle of burgundy de 1750," the drunk little man went on, "Magnifique. Très bon année. See if there is any up top, mon ami?"

"…Napoleon?"

The small dictator squinted at him. "Oui."

Edgar looked to his… er… not-date, then back to the diminutive dictator. "Didn't you die in about 1820?"

"Oui."

Now he was confused. "But nobody stays in Hell for that long! I've never seen a single person who died before 1950 down here."

"Non. I am 'ere, still. Too short to ride, they tell me. Bah! Diable faisait stupide. Je suis ici depuis des siècles."

"I don't speak French, midget," Jimmy said, fingers tapping his crossed arms impatiently.

"Don't be rude, Jimmy. He's drunk. Can you speak Spanish when you're drunk?"

"I can't really speak Spanish at all, anymore."

"So, you admit that Napoleon here speaks two and a half languages more than you."

"Two and a half?"

"Yes. He speaks French, Italian, _and_ English."

While Jimmy was trying to figure out how offended he should be, Edgar leaned back down to the dead emperor under the table. "Maybe you should come out from under there, it's not really safe. Hm. You know, you don't look an inch over four feet tall. I swear I read somewhere that Napoleon was five foot five…"

Napoleon rolled out from under the drink table. "I 'ave been 'ere too long. After a while, I lose all sorts of things… 'eight, one thing. Memory, another. Tell me, in life, I was poisoned, oui?"

"I seem to remember it was stomach cancer…"

Napoleon frowned. "Perhaps it was."

As much as he wanted to ask about the height again, something told Edgar he wasn't going to get a straight answer. It just didn't work like that down here. He pressed the wine bottle to his lip, uneasily. Death, stripping a person of their life one item at a time… well, what made up a dead person anyway? A soul? Memories? What was left when the body was gone, and all that remained was the stuffing that once filled that container?

Jimmy elbowed him. "Hey. Drink your wine, Edgar. I can hear your brain grinding from over here."

"Sorry," Edgar said, and took another swig of wine. "I'll do my best to think more quietly."

Jimmy leaned back against the table, pale eyes laughing under their dark cowl, and followed his own advice.

Moments like these were worth all the headache and uncertainty of the afterlife, worth the price of watching Jimmy's eyes glitter from the darkness. He took another gulp of wine, emboldened by the good dosage of alcohol still swimming through his veins from earlier in the night, and grabbed Jimmy's empty hand. "May I have this dance?"

Jimmy glanced at his friend then finished off his own drink. "Y'know what?" he said, as he tossed the bottled somewhere over his shoulder--the floor rained with glass shards-- "I like you when you're tipsy."

"Not tipsy," Edgar corrected, wrapping an arm around Jimmy's waist. "Buzzed? Perhaps."

And then they were back out on the ballroom floor, weaving between couples, and Edgar was trying not to think too hard about what he was doing or feeling right then. It was true, you weren't supposed to think to hard in these situations, and he'd at least implied he was going to stop overanalyzing everything for a moment—

Eventually the tide took them into strange places on the dance floor. Through the thinning crowd, there was a wall in sight—some ways in the distance, sure, but a surreal sight in the endless arcade. The dance pulled him into a complex movement, his right hand slipping out of Jimmy's hand and onto the man's waist—electric shock—and they dipped, spun, and all at once Jimmy's face was an inch from his.

Jimmy's dark eyes glittered behind the mask. "You want me to beg," he whispered, "I'll sure as hell beg."

Edgar's heart caught against his ribs. He wasn't sure he had even heard it, as if he might have dreamed it between the spinning room and the rapid beating in his chest. And it seemed to slip away, like it was caught in the currents of air swirling behind them.

The darkness, then, growing as they came closer to the wall, cut in between them and pulled Jimmy away, into a new dance with a pretty blond woman whose silver cross gleamed across her chest. And Edgar spun to face a new partner also, one so much taller than he, and whose grinning face was just a little too responsive to be a mask.

 _I'm dancing with the devil_ , he thought to himself, stunned.

"I hope you don't mind," Señor Diablo said, "but it was time to change partners. And I did so enjoy breaking up your little moment."

Edgar scowled, thoroughly creeped out by the feeling of claws on his back. "Yeah, well, can I have him back, please?"

"Of course, my dear man. Tonight, you may have any temptation you should choose. And he is a handsome one, isn't he?"

"I'm not entirely certain what you're talking about," Edgar lied. Who was the devil to pry into his personal business?

"You can play dumb with me if you like," Señor Diablo replied, grin stretching wider. "It won't do you any good. You're right, he _does_ clean up well. It's a shame you can't clean a person's insides the way you can their outsides."

Edgar gave him a suspicious look, as their arms parted and realigned around the beat. "Yes, I suppose it is. If you're referring to his… murders… I already know about them."

"Oh do you?" the devil laughed. "How? _He_ hasn't told you. Mr. Vargas, you are an excellent guesser, but you are guessing nonetheless. What has he told you about his past? What has he told you about his guilt? His shame?"

The darkness was thicker here, the soaring wall close enough that Edgar could make out the intricate shapes of the stone within it. The nearest dancers were ten feet in the other direction.

"He'll tell me whenever he's ready," Edgar said, eyes narrowed. "We've got eternity, and he's my friend. He'll tell me when he's ready, and not a minute before."

"And what will you do when you know?" Señor Diablo whispered, leaning down. "What will you do when he shows you all the dirty little places in his past? Do you think it'll be the same? Are you so certain that you can handle it? He's a very bad man, Edgar, bad to the very bone."

"Nobody's totally evil," Edgar said.

"Ahh," Señor Diablo said. "You _like_ that he's dangerous. You like that thrill of fear-" one talon traced a delicate line up Edgar's back, "-that runs down your spine, when you contemplate his misdeeds."

Edgar bit his tongue, arching into the shivery touch despite all his better judgment.

"But what will you do," Señor Diablo went on, returning his grip easily to Edgar's waist, "when it isn't _sexy_ anymore? When it isn't fun and fresh and easy to extricate yourself from?"

Edgar glared at him, his treacherous spine still tingling. "I refuse to believe that I'd ever abandon a friend. That's what you think I'd do, isn't it? You're just certain that when he tells me, I'll—"

"I know humans, my dear man. You don't have to _be_ entirely evil—even a drop of sin blackens snow." The devil smiled coldly. "Even for you. You're not free of it now, and you never will be."

Edgar stamped his heel down on the floor where Diablo's trailing robes had been a fraction of a moment before, but didn't manage to make contact. "Well why the hell not?"

"Because you are _human_ , Edgar! And no matter how many chances humanity gets, they're still a worthless, greedy lot. Fools, all of you. And you, my dear man, are the greatest fool of all! When the moment comes, all your beautiful promises will come crashing around you."

"And you think you know that for sure?"

"I don't think. I _do_ know. And if ever the times come that you have to sacrifice something of yourself, you will let him down. Trust me-" the devil looked down at him, his eyes glowing narrow slits, "-I'm an angel."

And then the darkness receded, and Señor Diablo released him, catching the hand of that pretty blond woman as he spun away and left Jimmy in his place. The younger man's face was a shade paler, what could be seen of it, and far more serious than Edgar had left him.

Sighing, Edgar reached out and grabbed his companion's hand. There was no use pondering the meaning of Señor Diablo's words—or his pretty date's—and the only thing left to do was to dance. He refused to let vague predictions kill his night. Despite it all, he was still buzzing with a bottle of wine and then some, still burning somewhere in his veins. Why not? And besides, Jimmy didn't seem to want to let him go.

"They talk to you too?" Jimmy asked, eyes trained on the blond woman fading into the crowd.

"Mhm."

"Are you as uncomfortable as I am?"

"Yes. Yes I am."

"Good. Didn't wanna be the only one."

They spun, almost alone in the darkness, and the moments of before receded, fizzled away into the beat and the violins and the beat of the dance. And, regardless of the warnings, Edgar could already feel the buzz of contact where his skin met Jimmy's. Despite the tinge of worry, he could already feel the shiver rippling out from the places where his fingers met the delicate knot-work of Jimmy's spine. He reminded himself that he was in the right.

"Self-righteous bitch thinks she knows me," Jimmy muttered, pulling Edgar closer, tight against him as if they were on the dance floor of a nightclub instead of a stately ballroom.

Oh yes, the burning was back in full force, and it didn't help that his breath was coming all short and electrified.

"I can get what I want," Jimmy said, but not to Edgar--to the far away whirling of the crowd. "Just because I know how to bide my time-"

Edgar chanced to glance out into the crowd, searching for whatever had caught Jimmy's eye. All he could make out was the masked, dull looks of endless twirling souls. If he squinted, he supposed he could imagine some were fading, a few of the mindless couples really looking at each other for the first time—he looked to the punch table, now, and noticed that the men and women standing near it seemed a little more lucid than the rest, if a word like 'lucid' could be applied to the sort of people residing in Hell. Though he was curious, it was a bit hard to concentrate. They were only vague shades, and man in his arms was distractingly real.

Jimmy leaned forward, a sly cut to his eyes. "I'm tired of wearing this mask," he murmured, sliding one hand up Edgar's shoulder. "Take it off, would ya?"

"Why can't you?" Edgar replied, maybe a little flustered.

"I can," Jimmy leaned even closer, "But I want you to."

Jimmy shifted both his hands to Edgar's waist as Edgar, eyes averted, undid the tie on his mask with quick fingers. He fumbled the velvet ribbon, forearms just brushing Jimmy's shoulders. He looked up. Jimmy's grinning, light-skinned face appeared as the mask slid free, and Edgar wasn't sure where it ended up because the next thing he was aware of was been pulled back, towards the wall and into the darkness. With Jimmy pressed against him, the dim lighting seemed more inviting than ominous.

The burning was a bonfire now; his breath was a current of ten thousand volts. Jimmy grinned, knowingly, and Edgar was forcibly reminded of all those moments before, lost in the tide, moments like these when he wanted nothing more than to touch, to be touched—everywhere, anywhere, skin-to-skin…

The hand on his shoulder slid up his neck, finding the pounding place below his ear where blood rushed, where his nerves themselves shivered. Just a single nail, pressed too hard, and he could be cut open, bled out. Just a brush and his body screamed—not good, not good, you've been here before and you remember how close you came—

"There's a door, there," Jimmy whispered, eyes flicking back towards the wall where, surprise surprise, there was a door.

What had he—what had he been thinking about?

Jimmy ended up with his back pressed against the door as Edgar forced it open, ancient hinges cracking like a gunshot, and they spilled into the nearly dark room all tangled up together. Jimmy reached for his partner's mask, threw it aside, and alarm bells were going off in the back of Edgar's head but the buzzing drowned them all out, burning and sparking wherever he and Jimmy touched…

He went in for a kiss. He wasn't sure what made him do it, because there was a fine line he'd always walked with Jimmy and kissing crossed that line, made it something he was afraid to think about. But all he wanted, all he could think of, was the promise of lips on his—

They had barely touched, a single brilliant starburst of desire, and then Jimmy was backing away with a strangled noise, horror in his eyes before he clenched them shut.

Edgar's skin turned cold, ice cold now where Jimmy's fingers had been only seconds before. Dread welled up in him.

"No," Jimmy said, and it sounded almost like a prayer, "No, you can't do this. I can't do this."

"What?" Edgar asked, ears ringing as if he'd received a blow to the head.

"I can't do this later. It's gotta be now-" Jimmy stopped, his fingers splayed as if they could ward off Edgar's very existence. "Or never," he muttered.

"What… What are you talking about?"

Edgar stood in the middle of the dark room, with the sinking feeling of a crash seeping into his bones. God, he should have known, he should have known this was going to end badly. And he never should have tried to kiss him. What was he thinking? He didn't even ask! Shit, he crossed so many lines.

"She said… sooner or later-" Jimmy started, then he stopped. In the light of the half open door, his face sliced by darkness, Jimmy grit his teeth. "Screw this! There's shit you gotta know before you go any further."

Edgar said nothing. Frankly, he was miserable and confused and tipsy and he didn't think he could manage a coherent response anyway.

"I haven't told you—fuck, I haven't told you a lot of stuff. I almost did, a couple times, but you're always cuttin' me off with some sappy shit. If you're gonna find out, it can't be after. I thought I could take it but I can't, so we gotta do this now."

"Jimmy," Edgar tried, "I told you, nothing—"

"I'm a horrible person, Edgar!" Jimmy shouted. "I'm a fucking murderer and you don't want to know what else! I've done things you'd never be able to forgive, 'cause you're a nice guy and a fuckin' Christian and I ain't either of those things, and I've done shit you'd wanna shoot me for."

Edgar reached for him. "Jimmy! I already know you killed people! It's alright, it's in the past and we're all dead anyway, and you're damned after all, so it's all sorted out, alright?"

Jimmy took another step back, his face twisted in pain. "No, no, you don't get it Edgar…" He turned away sharply, clutching a hand to his mouth. "Shit. You don't get it! I changed my mind, I don't want to talk about it. I've done awful things, and you'd better just leave."

Edgar didn't feel at all like leaving, not when Jimmy was freaking out like this—he tried to put a hand on his shoulder, to comfort him, but Jimmy pulled away like he'd been burned.

" _Rape_ , Edgar," he hissed.

The hand froze in midair.

"I've done it. I did it. Forget the murders, forget all of —even Nny… even _Johnny_ said I was a monster. Johnny Fucking C said _I_ was a monster! What's the difference, I want to know, what's the difference between the way he tortures people and what I did? But, hah, then I sat down and thought about it—"

Jimmy was smiling, but it was a terrible smile, buried in his white clutching fingers. "You remember that subway I rode into Hell?"

Edgar nodded, mutely.

"I never hurt that bad in my life, and I never want to again. Me 'n my sins, surrounded by people, I've never been more alone than that. I sat down an' I thought about it, and… what's the difference? There's no difference! No absolution! We _are_ the same, me and fucking Johnny C. But what does that get me? I rode that goddamn subway for half a lifetime and all I could feel was dying, again, hearin' my fucking hero dress me down like one of his piece of shit victims…"

He took a deep breath. There was a moment of silence, while Jimmy collected his shattered thoughts. Edgar thought of the smeared eyeliner those first strange days, the drunken rages--the ugliness that he had taken for granted as part of Jimmy's parcel.

"So Johnny… Johnny did kill you?"

"Yeah," Jimmy answered, a crack in his voice. "Ripped me open like a—well, it wasn't pretty. Shit, all I wanted was to make him proud of me. I'm a monster, so he was right—fuck, but he's a monster too! We're both monsters—we're all monsters, me 'n the whole world! Except you. That girl… christ, I didn't even know her. She looked like this girl I used to know, and I'd just seen Johnny tear this glamor bitch apart in the street and I… in broad daylight, like a wet paper bag, and I fucking _lost_ it, she looked so much like this girl I knew back home, this fucking cheerleader who used to sic her boyfriend on me, they're all the same, you know, all the same on the inside."

Edgar took a deep breath and stepped forward again. "We… can talk about that some other time. We _will_ talk about it some other time. But Jimmy, I knew from the first time we met that you'd done bad things. Horrible things. I mean, I didn't expect this, exactly, but I'm not as surprised as—"

"You're a shrink," Jimmy cut in. "You gotta know how fucked up I am. You know… you know what rape is, what it's _like_. Hell, I'm glad I put her out of her misery-"

"Don't say that," Edgar said shortly. "I know it's awful. It causes trauma and pain the likes of which most people will never understand. I know, Jimmy. I know. Living is still better."

"You think so!" Jimmy shouted, grabbing Edgar by the shoulders. His nails dug into skin, and Edgar noticed for the first time that they were back in their own clothing, all the glittering magic melted off like so much sugar dressing. "Then why are you still _standing there?"_

"Because I know you too!" Edgar shot back, fists clenching. "Why does everyone seem to think that I'm a coward? Listen here, Jimmy: If I left you, if I walked out this door right now, I'd be a monster too. I'd be leaving the person I care about most behind when he needs me more than ever, when I have a chance to help, to change something if it can be changed! You want me to stay, don't deny that!"

The nails in his arms retracted somewhat. "I don't."

"Then let me stay! Let me help you, or at least let me be there for you! Please."

Underneath the red spots and the freckles and the smearing days-end eyeliner, Jimmy looked so helpless. So fragile.

"Tell me…" Edgar bit his lip, "tell me why you did it?"

"I hate people," Jimmy scoffed, bitterness layered over his tongue. "You know that. I used to write their names in a little kill book, all the bitches who screwed me over and all the jocks who pushed me down the stairs. I broke my arm in two places when that fuckhead from chem got me on the second floor landing. And then I saw Johnny just _killing_ them, not worrying about cops or morals… _fuck_ , just to think of getting _even_ …"

He looked away. "After all the shit I lived through, I thought maybe the world owed it to us."

Edgar sighed.

Jimmy's hands fell away from his shoulders. "Yeah. Yeah. What kinda dumbfuck was I? Y'know, the more time I spend down here, the less I can even stand myself. I got memories, all kinds of stupid memories—being killed, killing, running away, getting picked on, _Carmella…_ Just me and my thoughts, that shitty apartment, stealing booze, sleeping it off… I don't think I've got a single memory I'd keep, if I had the choice. I think… if it wasn't for you, I'da gone crazy by now."

Edgar looked at his friend, searching for something else between the lines of rigid shoulders and tight shut eyes. You don't go crazy because some kid in junior high pantsed you in the locker room. And, if you're mostly sane, you don't kill people without some broken cog in the back of your head. And you don't _regret_ it either. Something about the story didn't quite fit, some detail was missing.

"Jimmy…" he murmured, "I understand why you killed those people, I think, but why did you… why did you…"

"Rape that girl?"

Edgar had a horrible memory of a conversation the two of them had once, outside of a restaurant. God, but this shed a whole new light on Jimmy's off-color jokes—they _had_ been jokes, hadn't they? Something inside of him shivered. What a terrible thing to be so casual about.

"Who the fuck cares why I did it," Jimmy said. "You think Cory worries about the fuckin' psychological ramifications of every roofie he slam dunks in a shot of tequila? People do that shit all the time. It's just what people do."

But only once. The nail marks in Edgar's shoulder throbbed. He had a terrible flash of a vision: snarling and tears-- _all of us out to hurt as much as we've been hurt--_ not triumphant at all, but monstrous and sad--

"Bullshit," Edgar said, to the surprise and consternation of his friend. "You're empathizing too much. What aren't you telling me?"

Jimmy looked away, probably searching for an exit to this conversation. "Why's it gotta be personal? Why can't it just be another dumbshit thing I did to impress Johnny?" ****

Edgar softened. He opened his hands, retreated a step. "If it was, then it was. But if it _was_ , I don't see why you should be so torn up about it after all this time. You've already said this much. What else do you have to lose?"

The longer Jimmy stood there, twisting his hands in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture, the more certain Edgar was that he had been right. After a moment, haltingly--as if this was an answer of some kind--Jimmy said, "You remember my stepmother?"

Edgar looked at him, carefully running through all the mental notes he had taken over the weeks. "The one who gave you those scars?"

Jimmy laughed bitterly, rubbing a thumb over his palm. "I told you that?"

"In passing."

"Yeah, well, that's the one. My dad married her when I was younger, and," he trailed off. "Shit, I don't want to talk about this. I haven't told anybody about this."

"Please, Jimmy. Please. For me?"

Edgar slid down to the floor, his back against the wall.

Jimmy regarded him for a long moment, searching for something, maybe a sign that Edgar would be willing to use this against him one day, just like every other person he had ever known. Apparently, he didn't find it. "Fine," he sighed. "They got married when I was younger, y'know, like fourteen. They dated for about six months… I don't remember my mother, but I remember most of my dad's other girlfriends—none of 'em really looked at me, which was fine. I didn't need a nanny or a babysitter, and I didn't care where my dad went on Saturday nights. We weren't exactly close, y'know, but we were fine, I guess."

Jimmy shifted, eyes turning far away.

"Would you believe I was actually kinda excited about getting a stepmother? Thought it might keep my dad around the house more often, if it wasn't just me. They were married about a month before she started looking at me. Like, _really_ looking.”

“Oh,” Edgar said, heart sinking.

“Everything was _fine,”_ Jimmy snarled, “until Carmella came along with her fake fucking boobs and her fake fucking nails, and me, I just wanted a damn mother, was that so much to ask for? Jesus, my dad just _loved_ that woman. What the fuck did he see in her?"

Edgar murmured, "Maybe he was tired of being alone."

“Well so was I! Maybe he needed to grow some balls! Carmella, she does this thing—she started doing this thing, she comes into my room and she touches my things and she tells me how she’s making my dad so _happy_ , ‘cause I’m such a goddamn useless burden on the family, and she does this every night, right? And I’m just trying to live my life, I’m just trying to get by with all the fuckers at school on my back all the time— She says all kindsa shit about me, like I'm a horrible person and my old man'd be better off without me. She says, 'do what I say or I'll make your life living hell.’ I shoulda got wise when she said that, but I didn't know fuckall back then.”

He swiped at nothing, gesturing uselessly into the air. “Then, this one night, she comes in… into my room… I was lyin' on the bed with my laptop, and she comes in and she locks the door behind her… I think she'd been drinking, some, she starts the whole spiel so I kinda tune her out until she says, 'I've been talking to your father about military school. That's the right place for nasty little failures like you.' That bitch always knew how to hit me where it hurt. So I'm telling her there's no way in Hell I'm going anywhere and we'll just see about all that, and while I'm talking she's moving closer and closer…"

Jimmy's hands clenched, and Edgar could almost see it, the boy on his bed in the near dark as his stepmother inched closer and closer, a dark shine in her perfectly painted eyes.

"I couldn't move. Can you imagine? I hate her. I hated her. She's my fucking stepmother and she's unbuckling my pants and telling me some shit about how I could change her mind if I'll do something for _her_ , and I just wanna stab her in the eye with a pencil, but my dad'll see it and who's he gonna believe? His shitty kid who keeps getting into fights? I can't do anything."

He looked down suddenly, a fierce gleam in his eyes. It made Edgar wince.

"I shoulda just done it then. Every day for the last year I wished I'd just done it then. I can't even tell you what it was like. I was fourteen, Edgar. Fourteen. And I hated her so much. But she touched me and… fuck… I'd just hit puberty, you know? I hate her. I hate me. She was fucked up and she fucked me and she fucked me up too. It was like… I remember her on top of me, looking down at me like it was my fault she was doing it. Like I deserved it. Hell, if I didn't then I probably do now. I don't know. It wasn't every night. Sometimes she'd go a month without even looking at me. That was the worst part 'cause then I'd start to think, 'maybe she's bored now?', and I'd get all relieved, but then she'd be there again that night with that fucking _smile_ —and I'd know it wasn't over at all."

He smiled, a shift that chilled Edgar to the bone. "Sometimes she really hurt me. How pathetic is that? She wasn't even strong, she didn't have any kinda training. But she could give me one look, just a look, Edgar, and I couldn't run. Knives, she loved knives. I think she got _bored_ with just fucking me. She liked these little cuts that healed in a week, all over my body, she thought it was so funny… and then she'd fuck me and god it was painful, everything hurt but half the time I still _got it up_. What the fuck was wrong with me?"

On the floor below him, Edgar closed his arms over his chest, holding himself. He had no idea what to say. It was all coming at him too fast.

"You can't rape the willing," Jimmy said, "but I know what I was, and it sure as hell wasn't willing." He shook his head sharply, like a tic. "Back then I didn't like to think about it like that, but, that's what was happening—I told her, once, after it had been going on a while, I told her, 'I'll tell, and they'll put you away for child abuse', and you know what she says?"

Edgar shook his head.

"She laughs, and she says, 'You came, Jimmy. As far as the courts're concerned, _you_ raped _me_. Imagine how it'll look to your dad, you forcing yourself on his helpless wife. I'll tell him you—'"

Jimmy stopped, choking on his own imitation. His nails dug into his skin so hard that Edgar could see blood around the rims.

"So that's when I gave up. Fuck, I hate her so much—she's still alive, up there, living it up while my dad foots the bill. I hope she gets hit by a train. No, I hope she gets captured and Nny keeps her barely alive in his stupid basement for the next thirty years without any of her precious fucking makeup. I know why _she_ did it. It's about power, it's about control. It's about proving once and for all who's better than who, who's got the right... who's got the right to live."

"…How long did that go on?"

"Hell, I don't know. Years. They got married when I was like, fourteen, and I ran away when I was seventeen."

Edgar sat back against the wall, eyes closed. He had expected, well, not something like this. A psychology degree prepares you, a little bit, and confidants from the Academy had shown him on a few occasions that evil things did go on, in the same world as him. Still, though he had cared about his students—of course, how could he not?—Jimmy was… Jimmy was different. This time, it was almost _personal_. It made him angry in a way that nothing else had before.

"But then you did it too," Edgar said, quietly, mouth pressed into his palm.

"See?" Jimmy said, mocking and sharp, "I told you I'm a monster. I told you. And now you get it." His voice cracked.

Edgar's head snapped up, his hand dropped. "No, you aren't!"

He supposed it was the tone of his voice that made Jimmy pause, a disbelieving look on his face. "Don't lie," he ordered, almost begged. "This is hard enough without you playing martyr for me too. I told you all of it. If I'm not a monster, who _is?_ You'd be hard pressed to find somebody more fucked up than I am."

Standing too, now, Edgar took a step closer to the younger man. "I'm not lying, Jimmy. I'm not. There's no such thing as monsters. Horrible things happened to you and you did horrible things. I'm not saying you didn't. I'm saying… I'm saying…"

He stepped forward again, and reached out for Jimmy's hand. Jimmy tried to shake him off, looking close to tears, but Edgar held on tight, taking the other hand too, so now they were face to face.

"Look, you asked me once, whether you still get a second chance after you die. You asked me, and I didn't have an answer then. But I know, now, that everyone gets a second chance. Everyone. Always. You're sorry, and you've been sorry for a long time!" 

"You don't _know_ that."

Edgar lifted a hand, cupping the hard line of Jimmy's cheek. "If you weren't sorry, you wouldn't be asking me to go. There has to be time for you to make amends, still. It's only fair."

"Life ain't fair, Edgar," Jimmy said, looking away.

"Yes," Edgar replied, "But… we're dead."

His friend was silent for a moment, and when he looked up again it was clear that he was fighting the tears tooth and nail, now. "You're serious," he said, almost to himself.

"Of course. You believe me, don't you?"

"Why?" Jimmy asked, stepping closer, urgent now. "Why should I believe you? Why do you care? What does it _get_ you?"

Edgar didn't reply for a moment. Well, what did it get him? It was the shared secrets between them, and the way his blood burned when they danced, and the countless days they had spent bickering over everything from the price of alcohol to the best flavor of chip, the way Jimmy held doors open for him when he would have shut them on anybody else, early morning conversations about shampoo ingredients, the thought of an eternity without someone to make fun of his clothes or call him a fairy…

"It gets me," Edgar started, whirling with a thousand mundane reasons, "your happiness. That's what I want. I want you to be happy. I guess, sometimes I'm not so logical, I just…"

Jimmy made a sound like a sob or like laughter, behind his hand. When Edgar looked up at him, startled, he said, "You're so totally in love with me."

That brought Edgar up short.

Jimmy was grinning behind his fingers, now, though his eyes still looked suspiciously wet. At Edgar's shocked silence, the grin grew wider. "God, you _are_ aren't you? My life is such a fucking joke! You're in love with me—Me, the absolute worst human being either of us has ever met—and you, you're the absolute nicest guy I've ever had the misfortune of meeting."

Edgar scowled. "Misfortune?"

The sound this time was definitely laughter. "Christ, when you didn't wanna sleep with me after the club the first time, I thought you must have—I thought I must've been too fucking repulsive for you to even—"

"No! No, Jimmy, come on. I didn't even think you, that you wanted—"

"Oh Edgar!" Jimmy cackled, tears running down his cheeks. "I'd screw you in about two seconds flat!"

"…It's nice to know you think so highly of me."

Jimmy broke down laughing, tears mixed into the mirth, and after a few moments of attempting to look offended, Edgar succumbed to it too. It was all too surreal. And, in the end, love maybe was as good a choice of words as anything. They say that love makes people do crazy things. Nothing could be crazier than standing here, knowing what he knew, and still wanting to hold this shattered knife-edge of a boy. He didn't even care that the effort would inevitably cut him.

"Okay, okay," Jimmy finally said, as the last giggles faded out. "So, does this mean you'll sleep with me now?"

The laughter in Edgar's stomach went mute, like a finger against the metal of a wind chime. "Oh," he said. "Oh, Jimmy. I don't—I'm not sure—"

The smile on Jimmy's face fixed, like a mask. "Come on," he said, "you love me, you want me. Let's do it. When was the last time you got laid? Don't answer that, I already know."

Edgar looked away. He didn't want it, not with all this hanging over them. He didn't want it in the shadow of this horror, with Jimmy so eager to prove himself.

"…Right. Well, fine then, you're still sleeping on the couch."

Edgar breathed a sigh of relief. "Somehow, I think I'll survive."

At the time, Edgar was tired. At the time, Edgar was recovering from the revelation that his best friend was the worst kind of criminal, recovering from having someone else inform him that he was, very possibly, in love. At the time, Edgar was more tired than he cared to admit, and still just a very little bit intoxicated.

Later, he'd look back and he'd think that, even though at the time he didn't think much of it at all, there was definitely something darker about the glares they got as they left that shadowy room. Narrowed eyes and whispers bounced away from them, fingers pointed, and the path in front of them cleared as they sought for an exit. At the time, Edgar though it best not to question the good fortune or the renewed attention. After all, there were so many of them, and they were always hateful—it took the length of another morning to make him wonder why they were so focused on him and Jimmy when, usually, there was enough animosity to go around and around.

At the time, Edgar just wanted to go home.

And by home, he meant Jimmy's place.

 


	13. Smoke Trick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> of course there's a fucking [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIi57zhDl78&list=PL18Z5FjZ7wjPCxN6skdv_djg1xb3_bfxx) who do you think I am

As Sigmund said to the red-lit bar:  
''Sometimes a cigar  
Is just a cigar''.

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Smoke Trick 

* * *

 

It was a difficulty breathing that finally woke Edgar, that and light seeping through his eyelids. They cracked open, greeted by familiar purple walls lit to almost blinding white where the window cast morning over them. Something caught his eye, at the bottom of his vision… black and pale… He shifted to get a better look, and to take the pressure off his chest…

Jimmy. Jimmy was draped across him, knees curled around his own, head on top of his lungs, snoring lightly. Edgar froze.

" _Jimmy_ ," he hissed. Nothing. "Jimmy!"

Jimmy cracked an eye and looked up at him. "…Heeey," he said, stretching his legs, body pushing up probably-incidentally into Edgar's. The effect was nearly obscene

"Jimmy, what are you doing?"

"… Uh, I _was_ sleeping."

"On top of me!"

"Dude, chill. It's way too early for shouting."

Edgar stared at him. As long as he didn't move, this wasn't _the_ most awkward position he'd ever been in. But with Jimmy's hand now absently starting to knead at his stomach, it was getting on up there. Edgar winced and squirmed, all the nerves down his back prickling  at Jimmy's touch.

"I don't think this is how being banished to the couch is supposed to work," he said.

Okay maybe that kneading was not so absentminded after all. Jimmy squeezed at the soft flesh over Edgar's ribcage, moving just a little bit higher with each exploratory grope. Half-lidded, sprawled over Edgar, Jimmy grabbed with a little too much enthusiasm to be as sleepy as he was putting on. "Hadda make sure you wouldn' run off," he said.

Edgar rolled his eyes and flipped his unexpected bedfellow to the floor where he landed in a heap. "Remind me never to fall asleep first again."

Looking out the single window, Edgar fancied that the bright white daylight had a hint of morning gold in it, the way he remembered it back on Earth. It was pretty, it was bright, and it was warm—Hell could be a beautiful place, in the right light. He remembered how his mother had complained, when he was little, about the concrete and the traffic in the city, the way she'd pined for trees and rivers, but the city was all he'd ever known, and it was beautiful, to him.

Jimmy was grinning up at him, a kind of silly look on his thin face. "Make me breakfast," he ordered.

"…You just felt me up and now you want me to fix you a meal?"

"I want waffles!"

Edgar sighed. All shenanigans aside, he was pretty relieved to see that everything was normal between them. He knew they'd have to bring up some important things soon. Just... not today. Tomorrow. He couldn't let things go on like this, not if he could help somehow. But normalcy, that was a kind of reassurance in itself. It was, to Edgar, both a promise and an answer to the questions he imagined Jimmy was asking himself. Or that he would ask himself, as the day went on. And while Jimmy was still in many ways a mystery, Edgar knew him better now than he'd known anyone before

Five minutes later, Edgar was mixing batter in the kitchen and shaking his head at the absurdity of his existence. Why did milk still spoil when there was no way it could be coming from cows? Thank god this mix was okay with water. 

Edgar put on the last waffle, for himself, and smiled slightly. He loved Hell. He loved the universe exactly as it was, right then, at that moment. Tomorrow, tomorrow he would upset this warm peace. But not today.

Through the partition, draped over the couch, Jimmy watched him work. His grin was just visible over the curve of his elbow. "You're like my wife," he said.

Edgar glared at him, as he flipped down the top of their shiny new waffle maker. "I'd stop that line of thought if I were you, lest you suddenly find yourself lacking a couple key pieces of anatomy."

"Ooh, intimidating." Jimmy yawned. "When'd _you_ get all aggressive."

"Probably about the same time you decided you wanted to get married."

Jimmy leered at him. He'd forgotten to take his makeup off before falling asleep, for the millionth time, and he looked like a stray garbage animal lounging in the cushions. "It's only 'cause you're such a sweet little homemaker. I'd like to see you in an apron, just an apron, if you know what I mean—"

A waffle to the face effectively cut off that comment. There were pitchers who would envy the speed of that breakfast item as it hurtled towards Jimmy. And there were boxers who would envy the force with which it knocked him to the floor.

There was a moment of freshly baked silence.

"I'm divorcing your aggressive ass!"

"We're not married!"

"That's debatable!"

Edgar turned back to the waffle iron, lips twitching into something that badly wanted to be a smile. Common law marriage, good lord. What would his parents think?

The red light warned him to flip over the iron. His smile faltered. It was still dawning on him in nervous little waves that Jimmy really was attracted to him, after all. He had no idea what to do with the knowledge now that he had it. They could have--that was to say, Jimmy would have been more than willing to--but then even as he thought of it, a prickle of fear crawled up his spine.

God, where to start. There was so much of it, so many things all tangled up in each other; the whole nauseating gloom of everything that came before crashed over him. He didn't know where they were now, but it certainly wasn't like it had been.

"I had a dream," Jimmy said, righting himself with waffle in hand.

"That one day all children would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin?"

"No. Fuck you. Now I'm not gonna tell you."

Edgar rolled his eyes, pulling off his glasses. They were a bit smudged, from the powder mix. "Oh, you know you want to tell me."

Jimmy snorted. "You know you wanna know."

Edgar just waited.

"…I dreamed about the devil," Jimmy said, at last. "Not like he was at the party. Big scary motherfucker, heads for days. Quoted some kinda poetry at me.  _Love pardons none?_ I dunno, it was weird. You see anything while you were out?"

Edgar shook his head. "I never dream anymore…" 

Jimmy hummed and returned to his waffle. "Weirdo."

"Takes one to know one, Jimmy."

"…Guess so."

 

 

 

Tomorrow came and went, and they didn't talk about it. Each time he thought about starting, he remembered that day early on in their friendship, when he had said "do you want to talk about it?", and Jimmy had told him to _mind his own goddamn business,_ and how well that day had gone. There just never seemed to be a good time. He'd wait for Jimmy to give him an opening. The right time would come, at some point, and then—and then they would untangle that awful knot, somehow. When Edgar finally excused himself from the apartment, he was several blocks away before he remembered that they had never actually gotten back to talking about what happened at Pandemonium, and by then, well, he was too far down the road to turn around.

Edgar went back to the Lows, and this time he brought his own string. It was kind of strange to do this without Jimmy at his side—true though, that went for a lot of things. In any case, Jimmy was a suspicious wreck when it came to people in general and did not make great company for a how-do-you-do visit, which was understandable, when you considered the things he'd done and the things that had been done to him. _How_ in the world did Edgar end up being best friends/in love with such a soap opera?

Not for the first time, Edgar wondered what would have happened if Jimmy had been his student. Maybe he could have gotten through to the real problem in time, maybe he could have given the teen somewhere to turn besides their local serial killer. He wouldn't even mind getting hit on by a student, not if it meant saving somebody's life and sanity. A few people's lives, actually, if you thought about the people Jimmy had murdered.

Between shelves of plywood, Edgar stopped and sighed. There was the thing, the dust cover ripped off the elephant in the room once and for all. You can't pick who you love, he supposed. But he'd always known, there had never _been_ a time when he hadn't known what Jimmy was capable of. Did that make him complicit, in a way? Even if all the crimes had been committed before they even met-

Edgar forced himself to keep walking. To hell with the devil and to hell with the whole thing. He should be able to love someone and not become a party to their sins.

Their normalcy was thinly stretched—the longer it went on, the thinner it seemed. Edgar waited for the right mood to find them, but moments came and went and the right one never appeared. He shrunk back each time from the precipice of the question. The question, the one that stretched over them, _Oh, do not ask "what is it"/Let us go and make our visit-_

Edgar shook off the nervous impulse to poetry. In the last few days Jimmy seemed restless, a little too close, a little too busy. The labyrinth was the best place for Edgar, right now. He hoped to give the kid some time. Alone. And to do a little thinking himself. He needed to see a friendly face.

Edgar reached that fork in the road and glanced left at the darkness, then right at the light. He'd stand by the old decision, but he was still curious… maybe just a peek in the other direction? He slid up against the racks of paint cans and curled his fingers around the corner, sidestepping closer. For a brief moment, he was reminded of the first nervous venture through Heaven. The right aisle glowed brightly, almost comfortingly. The closest shelves were stocked with flat-screen TVs, a luxury he'd only heard of before, on his teacher's paycheck.

It did look like a nice way to go. Still, something made him cautious, so that when he took a step farther onto the path, it was only one foot that hit the tile.

And it was a good thing too.

The square below his sneaker gave way almost immediately, tumbling out from under him and into some abyss even as he threw himself backwards from it. His heel brushed an adjacent tile, falling away, and it too dropped into the darkness without a moment's hesitation. Edgar's phantom heart jackhammered in his chest as if it was trying to resurrect him in earnest.

He sat shaking on the floor that remained, the laces of a sneaker dangling over a bottomless and yawning pit. 

Edgar wasted no time heading round the other direction, into the creepy safeness of the dark. This time, Edgar went without distraction through the maze. All the bizarre but harmless monstrosities of the dark path remained sleeping in the shadows, uninterested in his progress. It wasn't long before he was once again faced with the little yellow Helpdesk sign amid the bottles of mace and turpentine. He paused at the edge of the shelves and rapped his knuckles against the metal.

"Bondye?" he called, but not too loud, in case the man was sleeping at his post again.

"Ah, Mister Vargas!" the voice called back. "I knew you'd be back."

Edgar stepped into the light of the labyrinth center. A fat red apple sat on the desk, not too far from the kicked-up boots. The ring of light around the help desk glittered up from the tiled floor, dusty but unscuffed and unstained. Bondye had a dime store pennydreadful in his hands, pages already going yellow. As Edgar stepped into the light, Bondye licked his thumb and turned the page.

"I'm sorry," Edgar said, "how do you know my name?"

Bondye shrugged. He laid the book down over his knees, holding his place. "You mentioned it last time."

"Oh." Damn his memory. Luckily Jimmy wasn't here to put him on blast. 

Bondye grinned up from his chair and gestured towards the spot of color by his boots. "Grab that for me, please?"

Edgar scooped up the apple, waxy and perfect in his hand, and offered it over the desk. "How have you been?" he asked.

Bondye flicked his fingers. A little pocket knife in his right hand caught the florescent light, shining only a bit brighter than the apple in his left. "Always the same—except when I'm not. Want a slice?"

Edgar leaned against the desk. "Are you sure you want to share?"

"Of course I do," Bondye replied, offering up a rough wedge. "But don't tell no one."

"Can do." Edgar grabbed the offering and popped it into his mouth. "So I took a look at the other side of that big split in the maze on my way in and I nearly fell through the floor. Do you have any idea what's down there?"

It wasn't too far fetched to imagine a sort of Alice in Wonderland ending, tumbling down and through the other side of something, maybe into the real world. Maybe into the actual _Hellish_ portion of Hell. Just because he hadn't seen it yet didn't mean it couldn't exist.

"The universe is big, Edgar," Bondye said, digging the tip of his knife into another slice of apple, "much bigger than it seems. The world is narrow, but the universe is wide. There are layers, you see, on top of layers folded into folds of reality. That floor there, it leads you back to the beginning, back full circle. You can walk into that light as many times as you like and you still won't go nowhere."

"Symbolism?" Edgar asked, taken aback. "Do they pay the contractors extra for that?"

"By the penny. Look, everything is symbols. This apple here is a symbol!" Bondye flourished the fruit in his left hand. "And so are you. In this world, every one thing means something else."

Edgar contemplated that for a moment. _What do I mean, then_ , he thought, turning his hand over, watching the roll of his knuckles. What did his existence matter to anyone, to anything?

Bondye tapped the back of his knife against the desk, and Edgar looked up startled. Bondye gave him a little smile. "Your friend," he said, "he came through the usual way, didn't he? The subway?"

"The subway," Edgar agreed. "And the... coin."

"Well there you are, then," Bondye said, returning his attention to the apple. Each perfect section was held to the rest by the slimmest circle of unbroken peel. "You already know how it works down here."

"I've been wondering, actually…" Edgar began, hesitant. "Maybe you'll know. People don't stay in Hell forever, do they? If it's not a punishment, then what's the point of it?"

Bondye laughed. "It is too a punishment! But what's the point of revenge for the sake of revenge? Penalties are teaching tools, just that, and every lesson gets learned different. Your friend told you about the ride here?"

 _Twice,_ Edgar thought, but he couldn't untwist his tongue enough to explain. Bondye hooked his nail into one of the perfect red segments and broke it free with a single tug, all except that last little bit of uncut flesh. That remained, clinging to the core. 

"You could imagine what it's like, if you wanted," Bondye said. "It all comes back eventually, people generate a lot of psychic grunge just by existing, but for a little while, it's all quiet. Self-loathing and regret, questions of what's wrong and what's right, memories of the people you hurt… A lot of people get drunk after they arrive, trying to forget the sensation."

Edgar felt his expression twitch. But how many of them get drunk in a giant taco? 

"That's about as much as you can do for people," Bondye said. "Make it a little quieter, just for a moment."

"I guess," said Edgar, who thought there were several other things you could do for people if you had the whole metaphysical machinery of hell at your fingertips. But he guessed the devil wasn't as interested in meddling with people as he was in watching them ruin their own lives. He certainly had seemed happy enough to watch Jimmy and Edgar's relationship implode.

"In any case," Bondye went on, "that's not what you were really asking. What you _really_ want to know about is second chances."

"Wha…" Edgar started, then thought better of it. There were only so many questions you could ask at once. "It's not for me, it's for my friend. He needs one."

"Oh, but _you_ get one too."

"I'm-" Edgar said, hunching into himself. "I'm fine. I got my eternal reward. What more could I ask for?"

Bondye gave him a look that was almost sad. "Hell is all about second chances. If you need one, you find your way here, damned or not. And you, Edgar Vargas, will get your dues." 

"My dues," Edgar echoed, a shiver passing through him.

"Don't you know?" Bondye held up three fingers. "Every human being, whoever they may be, is entitled to death, a soul mate, and a second chance. Not," he laughed, "necessarily in that order, for everyone."

"I don't think that's true," Edgar said. He'd done everything right the first time, there shouldn't be business left unfinished now of all times.

Bondye licked juice off a knuckle. "Don't mistake your own fear of consequences for a life well lived."

There was silence for a moment, as the lights overhead buzzed and the apple, gutted and pale at its center, glinted.

"Who _are_ you _?_ " Edgar finally asked.

Bondye flicked the knife disinterestedly, pulling another red wedge free. "I am what I am."

Edgar tapped a finger against the boots resting on the tabletop. "And how, exactly, did you say you came to end up in Hell?"

"You mean, what I did wrong? Too quick to anger, not fast enough to forgive. I could tell you a long ugly story about a breakup, but I don't think you really wanna hear all the gory details."

Edgar stared at him, not sure whether he ought to push further. If he didn't know better, he'd think there was something... otherworldly about Bondye. But Bondye was just another person making their way through the afterlife, wasn't he? If he wasn't, what would he be doing down here, in Hell? Angels don't leave the light of God. Everyone knows that. They get the damned to do it for them.

Besides. Those aren't the kinds of lives angels have. Are they?

"So." Bondye smiled and held up another slice of apple. "You go back to your friend now, eh? You think about beginnings and endings, and you think about what you really want. You don't know yet, but soon enough, you're gonna need to."

"Do you just know everything?" Edgar asked him, half exasperated, half intrigued. He popped the slice into his mouth.

Bondye laughed again. "Now, what'd be the fun in that?"

 

 

 

The next time Edgar found his friend, it was as he always did: in confusion and mayhem.

Jimmy was strolling by, hands in pockets, smoking a cigarette when Edgar got a glimpse of him between all the matt black hair and kohl-rimmed eyes. Jimmy almost didn't notice, despite the desperate hands waving in his direction. That self-centered little…

"Jimmy! Jimmy you jerk, _help me!_ "

Jimmy took one look at the crowd of goths between the two of them, two looks at the smears of black lipstick on Edgar's face, and went busting into the semicircle like a mosher from Hell. Ebony nails met a few choice targets, boots likewise into choice kneecaps, and Jimmy grinned widely as he bullied his way into the center, between Edgar and the half-dozen ardent admirers. They glared at him with identical wary sneers.

A switchblade, new and shining green like the wings of an insect, flicked open in Jimmy's hand.

"I'ma say this real slow," Jimmy said, eyeing his opponents, "'cause I know you don't listen too well. This—" he pointed over his shoulder, "—is mine. No fucking with him. You mess with my stuff, The Darkness makes your afterlife _real_ Hell. Now scuttle your asses back to whatever rock you crawled out from under, 'kay?"

The little mob narrowed their eyes like they wanted to argue—but Jimmy flicked the knife in their direction, blowing smoke, and they wavered.

"Well?"

One by one, they stepped back and disappeared around the corner.

Edgar breathed a sigh of relief, finally relaxing against the brick behind him. Good lord, his bookstore persona was really starting to get out of control if people were noticing him out on the street now. To be fair to them, he  _had_ promised a few of the creatures in that mob beautiful vampiric fictional personas. He was starting to feel guilty about not having the skills or the materials with which to deliver on his promises. 

But jesus, one of those girls looked like she could have been his student. And, whatever happened to taking no for an answer? If they invite him to do something illicit in a bar and he says no, that should be the end of it right? _Wrong._ It was starting to seem that he'd learned interpersonal communication all backwards.

Jimmy flipped the switchblade closed. "You got yourself a pack of fangirls while I wasn't watching, huh?"

Edgar just rubbed at the little indents that his glasses made on his nose. "I didn't do a thing! I didn't! I was just minding my own business!"

"Think I saw a couple boys in that mess too."

"I'm not that interesting! I haven't even published anything!"

Jimmy grinned. "Well, you play it convincing enough, I guess. And I don't think what those types are interested in is _reading_. I mean. Have you seen the way you walk? It's like you're beggin' to get fucked. You move your hips like a stripper. Lucky you haven't attracted any creeps yet."

Edgar glared, dropping his hands. "You mean any _more_ of them."

"…Oops. Yeah. Well, anyways, you're safe now."

Edgar pushed off the wall, carefully, wiping at the smears of lipstick he could still feel on his cheek. Eww… "How come they listened to you? No offense, but you're not exactly the most fearsome face on the block."

A disappointed look flitted across his unfearsome face for a moment before he glanced toward the street corner, contemplative. "They knew me back on Earth. I kinda had this thing going with the Goths—I wasn't one of _them_ , y'know, but I was like them."

Were intersubculture politics that complicated? Some of Edgar's doubtfulness must have shown on his face.

"I used to have a rep," Jimmy said, "believe it or not. Like… street cred. But with fishnet gloves. People knew not to fuck with me or I'd fuck back. Hey, it's better to be feared than loved, right?" he frowned at the empty corner. "Johnny probably killed them too."

Edgar followed his gaze, cold and uneasy. Despite the veil of death that hung between them, it seemed that his murderer sank those emaciated fingers into every corner of the universe.

Jimmy crooked a finger and breathed out a cloud of smoke, stepping off down the street. Edgar followed, because that was what he was supposed to do and he really didn't mind. It wasn't like he needed to be anywhere else just then. If Jimmy wanted him then Jimmy would have him, and that was the natural state of things as far as Edgar was concerned. 

"When did you start smoking?" he asked, looking sideways at the cigarette between Jimmy's lips.

"Since it made me look badass," Jimmy said, leaving the 'duh' unspoken. At Edgar's _I'm still waiting_ look, he went on: "Okay, it's like that street cred thing, yeah? Goths smoke. Pimps smoke. I smoke. Sometimes. Tastes good, and people take you seriously. Besides," he breathed, sliding the cigarette out with two fingers, "it makes me look sexy, don't you think?"

Edgar had to admit, with his mouth slightly open and smoke curling over his lips, Jimmy did look… alluring. Even as he opened that thought up to the light, his stomach started to churn with panic. All down his spine, terror lit him up like a data bank blinking to life. As he stared, he felt something press against his mouth and looked down—Jimmy's fingers, and the end of his cigarette.

"Wanna drag?" Jimmy asked, eyes dark and amused.

Edgar jerked back and took a deep breath—catching some smoke in there—and closed his eyes for a second. Oookay, the last time he let Jimmy seduce him, they ended up balancing on the ledge of absolute ruin for much longer than Edgar ever wanted to again. Even if Jimmy looked sexy as hell right then, it was just not worth the leap of faith that could very well end in an eternity of plummeting abyss.

"Er… I don't smoke."

Jimmy raised a brow, and Edgar had to wonder if he was as transparent as he felt. They still hadn't talked about this. The expectation hung between them like so much smoke, heavy in the lungs.

"I mean," Edgar rambled, "it's not as if I've got any moral objection to it now that we're dead and it's not as if we can contract cancer, and since I drink there's no reason why I couldn't smoke I suppose, after all they're both intoxicants, but I never really learned how and it just doesn't seem worth it to pick up the habit now and anyways—"

The cigarette returned to Jimmy's mouth and he shrugged again, hooking an arm around Edgar's arm.

"Fine, fine," he said, closing his eyes and taking a deep drag.

For a brief, embarrassing moment, Edgar wanted nothing in the world more than to be the smoke that passed over Jimmy's tongue and settled, burning, in his lungs.

"But," Jimmy added, "you can't run forever."

It was painfully clear that he wasn't talking about the cigarette.

 

 

 

Here's the story Jimmy told Edgar, as he was pouring his torrent of laundry into the coin-operated washers located across the road from the discount whore-house.

Apparently, Jimmy and Chuey had a mutual acquaintance in the person of Fish, one the hanger-on types who desperately wants a place to belong. Drug possession made up his rap sheet, mostly. The way that Jimmy told the story, Fish was murdered about a month before Jimmy himself showed up, and none of the deceased from the local gang wanted anything to do with him.

"See, Fish's good for holding the bags, driving the car—but there's no police down here, so nobody really needed him anymore, and he's a clingy sonovabitch."

Chuey had observed that the boy was frequenting a particular bar, the kind that played redundant suicide music every night and hosted Die Again events whenever they could gather a big enough and stupid enough crowd. You could often tell when one was being hosted, due to the sounds of massed gunshots and, on one memorable occasion, a thirty person gallows constructed so badly that it fell apart the moment the trap went out.

Edgar leaned a hip against the washer. " _'We will make you king' said the people_ , _and Death replied, 'I am king already_.'"

Jimmy gave him a look.

"Stephen Dobyns," Edgar muttered, and busied himself shaking out some laundry.

In any case, there's nothing that the fringe like better than to pretend superiority over each other. So a few days ago Chuey went and found his old associate sitting on an abandoned stoop, staring at the sky.

"Chuey goes, y'know, ' _how's Hell_?', and Fish just gives him these crazy eyes."

 _Empty,_ he says. _Hell is empty, and I am a fool._

Understandably confused, and a little unnerved, Chuey rips into him for talking like a tool.

 _I'll talk however I feel like,_ Fish says. _I'm tired of chasing after blind men. Go away._

Chuey asks him, _hey, what's got into you? You think you're smarter than me?_

But Fish gives him that same look, as if he's looking _through_ the guy, and he says, _of course I am. I always was, and I'm sorry I ever tried to pretend otherwise. I wasted my life in the dark._

Chuey wants to laugh, if only to calm his nerves, but that eerie glare is sapping him of all the usual bravado. _Why don't you come back with me_ , he tries, _the guys miss you. I'll buy you a drink, okay?_

 _No,_ Fish says. _I'm done. The man who killed me was right, I was a fool._

And then he was gone.

Edgar raised a brow. "You mean he left?"

"No man, he was _gone._ Like he was never there."

Edgar considered that. You'd think that with the Devil being the drama queen he is, there might be a bit more in the way of fireworks. A poof of smoke. Something. Unless it wasn't the Devil's doing at all.

Jimmy slammed the washer closed. "Figured you'd be interested." ~~~~

"It's rather thoughtful of you to keep an ear out for me," Edgar said.

Jimmy looked down at his nails, examining the chipping paint. "Just happens to come up, y'know? Nothin' special. Not much else to talk about 'round here, you might've noticed."

"Of course." Edgar hid a smile.

Across the street, a woman in booty shorts gyrated while holding a large cardboard sign that read  _50% off_ . It was kind of mesmerizing. Edgar was trying and failing not to watch as she shimmied up the signpost. My god, the thigh muscles on that woman. **** ~~~~

"What d'you think happens after we get turned over?" Jimmy mused.

Edgar broke eye contact with the spectacle across the street. He looked at Jimmy, who jammed his hands into his pockets in a deliberately nonchalant way.

"Honestly? A lot of different religions believe in reincarnation—you've got Inuit and Buddhist and even early Christians. I suppose that's a pretty strong indicator, but it's only my theory."

Jimmy was watching the water sloshing into the washer. Today he was perfectly put together, in his long t-shirt and his high laced boots, and his coal black eyeshadow. The chain hanging from his belt loops shifted musically when he moved, although he wasn't moving now. He was only watching.

"If I don't go," Jimmy said. "Think we get to stick together?"

Edgar tried to imagine what his friend was thinking. "I hope so. I mean, if you aren't there, who's going to make fun of my clothes and call me a faggot? Oh, and I don't know what I'd do without you pretending you don't give a damn about me all the time."

Jimmy screwed up his face. "You being sarcastic?"

"No." Edgar turned back to the window without really seeing it. "Weirdly enough, I'd miss all that. How about you, do you feel like sticking with me?"

Across the street, a little round demon scurried into a thrift store. Two cheerleaders gave each other dirty looks. A suspiciously familiar Goth peered out from behind a pillar. A man launched himself through the window of the whore-house in a spray of glass. Never a quiet moment in Hell.

"S'not like I got anythin' better to do," Jimmy shrugged, "so yeah, I'll stick with you. I guess."

 

 

  

The first sign of things to come was Jimmy's hand on Edgar's ass. In public.

"…What the hell?"

Jimmy grinned evilly. His fingers wormed into Edgar's back pocket, unfazed, as Edgar kind of looked around helplessly, trying to think of an escape route.

"Stop it!" he hissed. "If people see you hitting on me in this part of town we're going to get lynched, and I don't particularly feel like getting strung up because you're a horny idiot!"

"They don't hang people down here," Jimmy said, eyeing their joined reflection in a passing window.

"There's a first time for everything," Edgar shot back. He reached around and pulled Jimmy's hand out of his pants, searching surreptitiously for any witnesses. God, the boy really knew how to push him. This was white trash territory, not forgiving to such aberrances as two men cheerfully flirting.

"Y'know what we should do?" Jimmy started, pretty much out of the blue.

"What?"

Jimmy slid his hands into his own pockets, still grinning. "We should totally get drunk."

The first thing that popped into Edgar's head was that it wasn't five o'clock yet—and then he remembered that there were much bigger problems with that idea, mainly pertaining to the dubious state of their relationship, and also the fact that a drunk Jimmy was sure to be a dangerous thing. And the uncertainty of timekeeping in the afterlife. The first time he'd seen the boy intoxicated, it resulted in a broken leg and a very sore head. Sure, it also resulted in their friendship, but that wasn't the _point_.

"Er… I really don't think that's a good idea."

The other thing was that the last time  _Edgar_ drank around Jimmy, they'd had several existential crises between them and also kissed. Edgar wasn't sure they could survive another round of that.

"C'mon man, don't be a pussy. It'll be awesome."

Edgar looked at him. "You know I'm twenty-seven, don't you? I was in and out of peer pressure territory a long time ago."

"Fine then," Jimmy replied. He hooked two sets of fingers around the front of Edgar's jeans and backed him into an alley, ignoring the protests. Edgar hit the brick with a  _whumph._ Jimmy did not relent.

"Please?" he whispered, now much closer than he had any right to be. His breath brushed Edgar's lips, sending a buzzing through the skin, and his fingertips burned with impossible heat. Christ and other such explicatives. Edgar was so  _weak_ for this stupid child, who was almost certainly going to kill him a second time at this rate.

Edgar did his best not to meet his friend's shameless bedroom eyes. "…You think you're very clever, don't you?"

Jimmy slid his fingers up Edgar's stomach.

"Okay, okay!" Edgar squirmed against the unforgiving wall. "I'll get drunk with you, just back off for a second!"

Jimmy winked and ever so slowly removed his hand from the underside of Edgar's shirt. Belatedly, Edgar remembered how to breathe, and tried not to make a big show of sucking in as much oxygen as his lungs could handle. Oh, his willpower was not faring well under all this pressure, and it had only gotten worse since the ball. He still felt like smacking himself every time he remembered the impromptu kiss.

Jimmy led him back into the street, suggesting different sorts of liquor and punches, everything from black Russians to tequila-wine sangrias. It was a little dizzying to hear all the different combinations he'd apparently tried, not to mention terrifying when he started to talk about _that one time_ he tried such and such. Edgar refused to believe you could make tea out of marijuana.

"You are an absolute punkass," Edgar decided, giving Jimmy a squinty, uncomfortably look.

Jimmy giggled. "Thanks man. I try."

"Hhm. You make my habits seem positively Mormon in comparison. How did you even get a hold of this stuff? You didn't have parents to steal from—" Edgar ticked off a finger, "—you didn't have money, and you didn't have a license or a legal drinking age. I'm curious."

Jimmy's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "It's kinda amazing what people just don't care about. I had a fake license and it didn't look a thing like me, but nobody cared. Not where I went. Anyway, most of the time I scored off whoever's house I was at."

If there was something bitter in his tone, Edgar could pretend not to notice. He looked down the street, sparing a moment to eye the woman glaring at them from a stoop. That was happening more and more often now, the anger that didn't seem to come from any faux pas either of them had committed. At this point, he was pretty sure it went beyond the general air of contempt that the damned wore like a classy perfume.

"Jimmy, are you sure you didn't do anything to publicly embarrass us?"

"God _damn,_ Edgar! I told you, I ain't done nothin! Did _you_?"

Edgar flashed back to an episode he'd had a day or so ago, involving one of the worse tempered demons and a very delicate Bentley.

"Nooo. I don't think so."

Jimmy kicked sideways and left a bruise on his friend's ankle. "If you're the one that caused the problem, you owe me a blowjob."

Edgar's eyes went wide. "Pardon me?"

"You heard me," Jimmy said. "It turns out you've been accusing me for nothing the whole time? You're gonna suck me off _so_ hard."

There was a moment of silence while Edgar tried to breathe properly again. This time, there was a little problem of his lungs collapsing at the very uncomfortable image that— oh god were those _sound effects_?

"I will _not_ ," Edgar finally responded, albeit weakly.

What would it even be  _like_ to go down on Jimmy? God knew he'd have no idea what to do. He imagined Jimmy leading him through the process step by step, fingers guiding his jaw, demanding and relentless as Edgar... took him in...

Jimmy had a voracious smile a mile wide, arm hooked even more tightly around Edgar's. "Nah-ah-ah. No backing out now."

"…I have feeling you're about to come out with an exceedingly dirty pun any second now, and I have to ask you to please _not."_

"You're in denial so bad. I already told you you're gay _and_ that you got a thing for me—how many other revelations I gotta toss at you? You need me to give you the birds and the bees too?"

As always, Edgar thanked God for his darker complexion as the burning in his face reached a lovely crescendo. If Jimmy could see his blush, he would never, ever live it down. He might as well go the whole nine yards and write a sonnet about how he wanted—ugh, any of the things he wanted. They were all equally embarrassing. Maybe he'd start with that moment with the cigarette from yesterday.

"You think I'm a lot more innocent than I am," Edgar muttered. "I _have_ read Shakespeare."

"You-you've read Shakespeare!" Jimmy crowed, slapping Edgar hard on the back as he howled with laughter. "He's read Shakespeare!"

Edgar's face was truly hot enough to boil now. He looked away, damning his stupid mouth. "I mean I've seen porn too," he said, "I mean, I have, it just. I thought of Shakespeare first."

"Straight porn?" Jimmy said, between wheezes.

Edgar tried to burn a hole in the sky with his stare. Yes, straight porn. He'd mostly just watched the men in it and tuned out the women. He could never bring himself to actually access genuine homoerotic material. It felt too overwhelming. Too dangerous.

"I can't fucking believe," Jimmy said, practically hanging off Edgar's arm as he caught his breath, "you said that. What in the god damn does Shakespeare have to do with sex?" 

"What does it _not_ ," Edgar shot back. "Have you even _read_ that stuff? I mean, have you really looked at it?"

"Uh… no."

"Trust me," Edgar said, "it's fucking filthy. It was written for the commoners too, you know. You'd think the whole of London had STDs from the way that man wrote. And there's one monologue by Iago that makes me _very_ uncomfortable."

Jimmy looked at him, wiping water from the corner of his eye. "By _uncomfortable_ , I'm thinking you actually mean _hot an' bothered_."

Edgar scowled. "I can't believe they made me read it for the whole class. That sort of thing is why I never tried out for theater."

The renewed laughter startled Edgar as it tumbled out of Jimmy's grinning mouth. "Oh God," he gasped, "I can just imagine… oh my… shit, I bet you got a hard-on just reading it… in the middle of… class… Come on, you gotta recite it for me."

"What makes you think I still remember it?"

"Uh, you did the entire opening to _Inferno_ last week when we were waiting for the bus? Because you were bored?"

Edgar groaned in defeat. It was true. "I hate you. Fine. If imagining me in awkward situations does it for you, then who am I to deny your sick little fix?"

"This is so great," Jimmy said, "I'd've killed to be there. I can just see it—bet you had your legs all crossed and your voice was breaking. Edgar, please, you _gotta_. How'd it go?"

The sad part was that he _did_ still remember a good portion of the speech.Some masochistic streak had sent him back months—and again years—later, to reread the passage.  It remembered the boy who had been cast as Othello, chewing his gum in the corner, watching with disinterest as Edgar stumbled over his part. It remembered the way his fingers had shaken after he finished. Man, that streak had a lot of power over him. It liked the way his stomach flipped every time he ran his touch over that memory.

"Okay, okay," Edgar marshaled up his memory, "let me see what I can get. It went something like…

I lay with Cassio lately,  
And troubled with a raging digit  
Could not sleep…  
In sleep I heard him mutter  
"sweet Desdemona, let us hide our loves"  
and he would grip and wring me,  
cry "oh sweet creature,"  
then kiss me hard,  
as if he pulled kisses by the roots  
that grew from my lips, threw his leg over my thigh…"

Edgar trailed off, unsure what the next line had been, and Jimmy started laughing again. "You read that for the _class_?"

Edgar pushed him off. "My teacher thought I didn't participate enough, so she gave me the villain's part. The villain just happens to have an even worse obsession with sex than you do. And, good god, I had to learn all this stuff in college about Elizabethan slang… 'threw his leg over my thigh'? That _literally_ means 'fucked me'. I will never forgive Shakespeare."

The arm wrapped around Edgar's went limp as Jimmy practically fell down laughing, hands splayed on the concrete. "Oh shit. I got a whole new appreciation for the classics now. That's… fuckin' awesome. Hey... hey Edgar, If I—If I read Shakespeare for you, will you fuck me?"

Edgar kicked him, hard.

"You're an asshole. I can't trust you with a thing, can I?"

"Hah… you don't mind. You wouldn't tell me if you didn't want me to mess with you."

Jimmy went on giggling, but Edgar went cold. He supposed it was true—but that Jimmy could read him so easily, without even pausing to stop the laughter, without a question or a warning? That was unnerving.

"You're so…" Jimmy went on, stopping to catch his breath, "…repressed. Oh, okay. We can talk about somethin' else."

"Thank you for your consideration." Edgar rolled his eyes. "But we've hit our destination."

The badly painted sign above the store was in the shape of a beer bottle—an unusually phallic one too, but perhaps that was just Jimmy rubbing off on him—and it swung over the door in the non-existent wind. They dashed inside, arguing over what sorts of bottles to take back with them, a bit like children in a candy store because, quite honestly, Edgar loved to drink maybe more than Jimmy did. It made everything pleasant and soft around the edges.

Wine was a must-have. Jimmy talked him into whiskey, and vodka, and they both reached for the cognac at the same time. Pretty soon they had a hand basket full of the various bottles, which Jimmy kept trying to sneak beer into. Edgar had already made it clear beer was not acceptable for this venture, but apparently the concept wasn't sinking in. The resulting tug-o-war nearly upended the closest shelf and made Edgar question his own sanity for the upteenth time that day. Okay. Enough horseplay.

At the counter, he whipped out his trusty blue card and handed it to the clerk, who was giving Jimmy a look of growing suspicion.

"Do I know you?" the clerk asked, tapping tobacco-stained fingers on the countertop.

Jimmy squinted at him. "Nah, I don't think so."

The purchase rang up without any further hiccups, but the look of suspicion never faded and it made Edgar itchy to leave. He grabbed the bags and pulled his companion back into the street, now more paranoid than ever, and headed for a place that they could get drunk without interruption or—hopefully—witness. He felt a little bad, as if he was doing something heavily sinful, though he'd gotten drunk countless times before and he couldn't quite pin what else the problem would be. He was, as he kept reminding Jimmy, twenty-seven now and forever.

His companion had the first bottle cracked before they even reached the destination, and he was diving in for a second gulp as Edgar pulled him under a staircase. It was a good place for drinking, and he'd used it once before to hide from an unpleasantly familiar face on the street. Located at the other end of an alley, it led up into an abandoned building of some sort and the six flights of rusting black metal curled above them, leaving just enough room for an Edgar-sized man to sit comfortably.

Edgar dragged over a couple of crates from the garbage as Jimmy looked around, and seemed to approve.

"Dude, you _do_ realize that... nobody'd hear you scream…"

Edgar snatched the bottle from his hands. "Can you go _five_ minutes without being creepy?"

"Yeah, but it's about all I got going for me."

Halfway through the cognac, Edgar started talking about Iago again, and unfortunately managed to imply that he'd fantasized about the character when he was younger. 

As they made their way through the wine, Jimmy deigned to recount some of the stupid exploits he'd gotten into during what would have been his senior year, possibly as an apology for laughing so hard at the Iago thing. They spanned from a rivalry with a thoroughly unpleasant girl named Anne to one explicit encounter involving a school hallway after-hours, in a school he did not attend. He'd offered to regale Edgar with further adventures of the sort but Edgar, being Edgar and very much embarrassed, changed the subject.

By the time they cracked the seal on the whiskey, Edgar was decidedly drunk.

Jimmy slipped between the older man's legs and rested his arms on conveniently placed knees. "… Y'ever really think you'd love a guy like me?"

Edgar paused, bottle at his mouth. The shape of the two of them reminded him of something--some image from an art book, some saint at the feet of an angel maybe, a Magdalene portrait. He looked away. 

"Don' be stupid. I didn' even come out till I was dead. I thought I was gonna die alone at forty. Thirty if I was lucky. But if I had," Edgar paused to think about it, "nooo, I don't think I'd've picked anything like you at all. Anybody. 'M sure he would've been… nice guy, upstanding even. My age. Maybe older. Instead I get… punk-ass juvenile deli… delinquent."

Jimmy giggled, twice as madly as usual, his black fingernails curling around the bottom of Edgar's shirt. "Y' don' want nobody like that anyways." He leaned closer, pushing up into the space between Edgar's legs. "Ah, babe, y' look drunk. Should do it more often. Make's you look sexy... kinda _vulnerable_."

Edgar watched him warily. "Don' try and pull anything. I have a high alc… alcohol tolerance. B'sides, your rape 'n pillage days are over, kid. 'M not having any of that."

A wicked gleam sparked in Jimmy's eye. "Uh-huh. Well if I ain't takin'… maybe I oughta _give_ …"

Edgar had an instant and sinking suspicion of what exactly that meant, but before he could translate the feeling into action—damn his reflexes—Jimmy's fingers were working at his jeans with startling coordination, leaving Edgar a layer more exposed than he wanted. Ah, now he remembered why he hadn't wanted to do this. Jimmy's eyes met his, burning with an intoxication of a totally different kind—he licked his lips, and that was when Edgar caught up to the situation. 

"Ohhh no," Edgar cut in, breathless, finally managing to capture the errant hands. "Not having any of that."

Jimmy gave him a frustrated look, and he pretended not to have a whole handful of cock pressing against their joined hands. He was getting a lot of practice at that.

"Y' always say _no_ ," Jimmy complained. "What th' hell y' _want_ me to do? I dunno… I dunno how to do anythin' else."

In the wine-soaked safety of Edgar's head, time stopped for a moment. Jimmy understood sex. It didn't mean to him what it meant to Edgar, who had lived his whole youth in the unrelenting grip of the church and his entire adult life in the loveless solitude of fear. 

 _But you don't understand this either, do you?_ Edgar wondered, drinking in every detail, from the burn in Jimmy's eyes to the press of black nails against his own skin.

Inside the flimsy cover of his boxers, Edgar's drunken bloodstream was doing its best to rise to the occasion. All of it was a muddled mess, incomprehensible except for the edges that caught the light. He wanted and he didn't want, and he could no longer distinguish one emotion from the other. It was all the same ache, the wounded keening in the pit of his heart.

 _I don't want you to offer because I've been kind to you_ , Edgar thought, helplessly.  _I want you to offer because you love me._

"Here," he murmured. "Here…"

Edgar slid his fingers so they linked with his companion's, like puzzle pieces, and pulled them up. Jimmy followed the motion, reluctantly. Edgar brought their joined hands up to Jimmy's chin and lifted it, until they were eye to eye. Edgar's slightly heavy breath filled the space between them. There was something surreal about this moment, as Edgar pulled them still closer together. Their lips brushed— _god_ , sparks like electricity, burning everything—and then parted, Jimmy's body pressed as tightly against his own as it could be.

_Let me try to explain… maybe I can show you…_

The last bottle was forgotten where it lay.


	14. Beatrice, Gentle Interceder

Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,

            Love, which pardons no beloved from loving,

 _-Inferno,_  Dante Alighieri

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Beatrice, Gentle Interceder

* * *

 

In the red glowing darkness of evening in Hell, Edgar looked up from a crosswalk. The heavy roar of a song blown through a car stereo was growing in the distance, just over the crest of a hill. The blinking halt signal beat a counter-tempo to the far away thump. He sighed, hands in pockets, and readied himself for a potential drive by harassment. The kinds of men, if you could call them that, who blasted their speakers that way tended to be the same kinds of men who would howl out the windows of their cars at anyone on the street who they deemed to be in danger of getting Ideas Above Their Station. That included women wearing literally anything shorter than an evening gown, and Edgar.

He took a deep breath and looked up to the sky for grace from a God who wouldn’t have cared to help even if He could reach this deep into the underworld.

A convertible crested the hill, gleaming cherry red and thundering with rock’n roll. Edgar kept his eyes fixed ahead of him. There was a squeal, a swerve, the flash of streetlights in metal—the whole howling contraption skidded to a stop just in front of Edgar, its taillights hanging in the middle of the living intersection. The music rattled Edgar’s chest. Another car laid on the horn as it swerved around and flew on past.

In the driver’s seat, Jimmy pushed a pair of useless sunglasses up over his forehead and threw open the passenger door.

“EDGAR!” he shouted over the frantic thump of the music. “GET IN!”

Edgar stared.

“COME ON!” Jimmy shouted, revving the engine, “WE GOTTA GO!”

Panicked and confused with himself, Edgar dove into the car, fumbling for the seatbelt even as the machine lunged forward beneath him, his door barely even closed. The singer in the roaring stereo hit a screaming high note.

“Where did you get this!” Edgar said, straining to be heard over it.

Jimmy flipped the sunglasses back down. “I stole it!”

“From who!”

Jimmy said something, but at the same time a car going the opposite way laid on their horn, and everything out of his mouth disappeared in a numb cacophony. Edgar clutched the handhold in the door with one hand, the console with his other.

“—but fuck him, am I right? After the shit he pulled with you, he can suck my entire cock.”

“Jimmy, you’ve got to slow this thing down,” Edgar said, as the street signs blurred past them.

“Don’t worry!” Jimmy said. “I’m a wicked driver, total monster behind the wheel.”

“I don’t like any of those words together!”

“Relax! I used to do this all the time back home!” Up ahead, the light changed to yellow. “Hold on!” Jimmy said. “We’re gonna blow this one!”

Edgar’s mouth popped open. “I change my mind!” he said. “I want out!”

The street splattered past them as Jimmy turned and looked at him for the flash of a second. Behind the black lenses his face was inscrutable, hard, manic. His nails on the wheel were freshly painted, glittering with the city lights. He’d tied the ends of a black jacket together over his bare chest like a vision of Daisy Duke straight from damnation. He was beautiful and terrifying, and he scared the hell out of Edgar.

The light turned red, as it passed over them, like a condemnation. Their speed slacked off, little by little. Without the wind, the ride was a bit quieter. Edgar reached over and dialed the volume back a tick.

“You can go if you want,” Jimmy said, fixed on the road ahead again. “I’ll let you out wherever. I just—I dunno, I thought we could have some fun.”

“Fun,” Edgar repeated.

“Sure,” Jimmy said, “I mean, you’re basically immortal. We could drive into a building and come out lavender fucking laundry fresh.”

Edgar glanced uneasily out the window. That was true. He’d survived some comparably nasty things in his afterlife thus far. He was not, however, eager to repeat the experience. 

“I used to go driving when I was—” Jimmy paused and puffed out his cheek, “—when it got bad.”

Edgar stiffened.

“There’s nothing like going sixty backwards up a one-way at 3 am to make you really feel like—” his fingers tightened on the wheel, “—like you it’s all just melting off you, like you could just scream all the goddamn smoke and rot out of your lungs.”

“That doesn’t sound like _fun,_ exactly,” Edgar said.

Jimmy laughed, a bitter wrinkle in the delicate skin of his nose. “Yeah, but it’s better than the other option.”

“Were you,” Edgar said, “were you having a hard night, tonight?”

Jimmy said nothing. Even in the darkness, his myriad scars flashed pearly and pale beneath his collar bone. Their speed unwound and unwound, until they drifted to a stop on the curbside, below the overhand of a parking garage.

“Well,” Jimmy said. “There ya go.”

Edgar watched him, one hand on the pull handle. What did a bad night look like for him? There was glitter smeared across his cheek, as if he’d been to the club earlier that night. It was a reckless darkness that held Jimmy in its grip, breathless with the flicker of a changing traffic light, a condemnation and a dare.

“Where are you driving to?” Edgar asked.

Jimmy shrugged. “I’m just gonna go 'til I can’t go no more.”

Edgar knew better than to ask if Jimmy wanted to talk about it. He clearly didn’t. But—all things considered—that didn’t mean there was nothing Edgar could do for him. Edgar leaned across the console and plucked the sunglasses from Jimmy’s face, flipped them, and set them down over his own nose. He didn’t need to check the mirror to know they looked ridiculous with his own glasses on underneath.

“I’ll go with you,” he decided. “If we get thrown through the windshield, I guess we go through the windshield.”

Surprise made Jimmy’s face soft: all his hard edges and the lines where his eyeliner had smeared wetly at some point in the evening. For a moment, it was bitterly clear that all his carefree affectation was built from tears and nails and spit. He'd been rough on himself.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment, licking his lip. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Edgar said, and sat back in his seat. “Avoid the one-ways.”

He doubted tonight would burn Jimmy clean any more lastingly than the countless nights before now, but at the very least, he didn’t need to do it alone.

As Jimmy’s hand settled on the gear shift, headlights flashed in the slice of the rear view mirror. Behind them, an unfamiliar engine revved. Jimmy looked up.

“Shit,” he said. His lips peeled back in a grin. “He found me.”

Edgar reached over and, with a flick, spun the volume dial back up until the whole car shook with the force of hysterical singing. It was a magnificent, awful wreck of an existence, but at least they could take it together.

“Let’s see if we can lose him,” Edgar said.

The night bled glorious darkness over that vast necropolis, and Jimmy howled into the wind as if he could, and would, breathe out all the rot and sludge of a lifetime.

Edgar had never known anything quite like it.

 

 

 

That night, on Jimmy's couch, Edgar dreamed for the first time since passing on. In Edgar's dream, it rains.

Outside the window, the air is silver with billions of tumbling drops, and the leaves of the trees are white where the sky reflects off their wet curves. The world is dulled. The world is smooth. Thunder rumbles through the mesosphere, lightning reflects off the black mirror of the street.

Edgar is alone.

He wraps his arms around his knees, because that's what he's seen children do and it seems to help _them._ His radio plays some melancholy piano piece, in the way of dreams, fragments of its melody coming in fits and starts. He presses a hand against the window, because the window is freezing cold and his palms are hot from where he's been rubbing them together, over and over, mindlessly. The music plays on, smooth as the rainfall outside, violet and blue and silver-white.

Edgar has no mother. He's used to that by now; cancer is slow and ugly but at least it gives you some warning. He has no father. That still hurts, and he tries not to think about it; if he ignores it, ignores the disconnected phone line and the _for sale_ sign in the old neighborhood, it's almost like his father is away on business. Moved back to Florida. Busy.

He has no cousins, no grandparents, no siblings. His mother's parents stopped answering their phone after Mamá and Father got married. Long time ago. He wonders sometimes if they're still alive, but he knows that at this point, there wouldn't be a ground left to build on. 

There's a white flower hidden in the glimmering leaves, on the other side of the glass. He thinks he sees purple lining on the very center, hidden safely from the wind and rain in its own little cocoon. He wonders what a flower is doing in the middle of winter, how it survived this long. Winter kills everything. He ought to know. Him and his goddamn bad luck, his stupid… his stupid curse—there's no such thing as curses but the joke always made him feel better about things, up until now.

Edgar Vargas knows loneliness with the old familiarity of a patient dinner guest. He knows it by the shape of the edges, the sound of the echo, and lately he has poured himself out, blindly and willingly, to fill that space which he can feel ragged and gaping in another person's life. Teachers have favorites. It's no secret, even if at times it would make things easier to pretend otherwise. At some point it stopped being a question of favorites and started being a question of other things - of knowing, anticipating, hoping. The taste of vinegar ice-cream tried on a dare. A conversation about the Jason's Argo Paradox in a stalled call, waiting for the traffic cops to open up a passing lane. All that for barely a footnote in a rushed goodbye.

( _But_ _I'm sorry it has to be like this. ~~Tell Edgar~~ Tell Mr. Vargas that I'm sorry. I hope this isn't too hard on him.) _

One line. As if they hadn't spent every Saturday together, as if they hadn't chatted almost every day after school, as if the kid hadn't asked him for advice on almost everything, as if the stupid copy of stupid Dante's _Inferno_ sitting on his lap right now hadn't had been left on his doorstep last Christmas with a tag reading 'in the spirit of the season. I expect an A for this.' As if he was only a blip in Edgar's life, a lone note in a symphony of more adult concerns. As if the last year had meant nothing.

If Damon had wanted a better parent—a brother or a father, anything other than the friend Edgar had thought he already was, all he'd ever had to do was ask.

Edgar isn't afraid of death. Not anymore. You can't fear something that stands on your threshold and shows you its face. What's death but that last train ride away from home, just as painful as anything else might or might not be? He's got nothing left at home. He hurts anyways. Death holds no surprises for him.

He's frozen and he's unfettered, and it aches like he's dying slowly from the inside out. The sky is gray, but he's unclouded. Everything is crystal clear now, and sharp as glass. He knows the answer. Nobody loves him. The kid never loved him. He wasn't enough. And he'll know better next time, if there is a next time. 

God, he might not die for  _decades_. How much longer can he do this?

In his dream he passes his thumb over his palm over and over and over again. Thunder rumbles through the sky, low and unstoppable. It passes through him like he's made of air, hollow and floating above this window seat with his frozen, transparent fingers pressed against the panes. He has no friends, no family—he's unclouded. Edgar is alone.

It's raining.

 

 

 

Edgar came awake in the course of the night with a splitting headache and a dry mouth, and the faint memory of a dream—he must have had one, later he would remember drinking in the middle of the night, tequila in a dusty glass in the darkness, eyes closed as he pressed his forehead to the cool refrigerator… something about pain, deep wrenching pain, and a song…

He couldn't remember through the damn headache.

In the kitchen he snagged one cup of water, then a second, and pretty much crawled back to the couch. Why did they have to have hangovers in the afterlife? Maybe it was only fair trade for the ability to get drunk, but right then he didn't feel like being reasonable. A few curses in the direction of Hell and its proprietors left the dead man just drained enough to sleep again.

 

 

 

Edgar dreamed of his first home. In his dream, Bondye stood before him, expectant, his face cast in shadow by the brim of a dark cowboy hat.

"Well, now," the phantom said, "you do know what you're doing, don't you?"

Edgar looked around. They sat in the kitchen of his childhood home, the one from his earliest memories—his Cuban mother's home, in the Florida countryside. He'd all but forgotten what it looked like until now.

"What _is_ a home?" Bondye mused, eyeing the family portrait hanging behind Edgar. He did not have to turn to know the shape of it, the awkward but gentle smiles.

"A place where you're happy," Edgar replied. His gaze strayed to the forest outside the window, a square of green on green floating above the sink. He'd forgotten how _green_ it was here.

"You think? And where are you happy, Mister Vargas?"

"Hell," Edgar answered promptly. "Hell's the best place I've been since my mother died."

In the ineffable way of dreams, Bondye shook his head and faded away, leaving his seat empty. Nonplussed, Edgar turned back towards the living room. He knew what he'd find there, if he bothered to look: big boxy TV, a shelf of books with titles like _The Dragon and the Unicorn_ and _The Invisible Man_. His father's books. And mixed in with them, his mother's romance novels. _The Wolf and the Dove,_ endless pulp titles all comfortingly predictable with their familiar characters and familiar beats.

He can't come back here. The house was emptied of anything that made it his a long, long time ago.

"I know that," Edgar murmured to the air.

"Oh do you?"

Edgar looked back to the table, where Señor Diablo now filled the seat across from him. The being raised one skeletal brow.

"I thought I was done with you," Edgar scowled, resting his head in his hand. "I already proved you wrong once. You want to try again?"

"I'm sure that's not how your mother raised you to treat a guest."

Edgar looked away and realized that the house had transformed around him as well, leaving them at the little wooden dinner table of a spacious apartment. This had been his home from fifth grade into college, and unlike the last, it was still fresh in his mind. Over the balcony, familiar Californian suburbs were just visible.

"You like my realm," Satan noted, "better than this memory. Curious creature."

Edgar shrugged. The apartment was empty of life, and even in his own mind it still carried the faint scent of death and mourning. That, no amount of soap could scrub away.

"You could have it, you know," Señor Diablo went on. "My realm, that is. I do rather like you, foolish being though you are. There are places where my administration is… shall we say, thin. You're a hard worker, pitifully fair too. I could use that."

"Is that supposed to sound like a Faustian deal or a business proposition?"

Señor Diablo shrugged, and in a puff of smoke, a pair of tiny reading spectacles sat on the bridge of his cavernous nose. "It matters not to me. Regardless of the means, I should like to acquire your talent for some measure of eternity. I would send you to all the cities, Paris and Moscow, Brighton, those little countries like Singapore… You could have respect, interesting work, a myriad of subjects to study..."

Across the table an array of pamphlets appeared one by one, travel brochures to all sorts of exotic cities Edgar had once idly dreamed of visiting, long after he was perfectly aware that on his salary he could never afford it. 

"If you're interested in business," Señor Diablo said, "I can make you a very tempting offer. We won't even bring souls onto the table. It's honest work, done for a wage, and all I ask for is a two-weeks notice when you decide you'd like to retire from it. Plenty of time to see the sights between jobs. Full luxury, of course, money is quite literally no object."

Edgar stared at the brochures. "What... kind of work?"

"Oh, nothing that would jeopardize your soul," Señor Diablo said. "Team training, report collection, maybe a bit of currier work. I have numerous agents in the field at any given time, and they have a regrettable tendency to slack off without a little supervision."

On the cover of the center pamphlet, all its brothers arcing out from it like a deck of cards, the Eiffel tower glittered against the Parisian night sky. Now _there_ was a paradise, the city of lights in the spring. He wondered if the devil could get him into the back catalogues of the Louvre. 

"Why a dream?" Edgar cut in, gaze narrowing. "Why not find me and ask me while I'm awake?"

"Your friend doesn't like me," Diablo replied, as if that explained it all. "Now, about that job offer… you can't tell me you aren't interested."

Edgar's hand hovered over the picture of Paris, all sparkling. "Could," he said. "Could Jimmy come with me?"

The spectacles disappeared in a puff, as easily as they had come. "I'm afraid that's not possible. Your friend is damned, Mister Vargas. I cannot admit him to leave the confines of Hell."

"Oh."

Edgar spied a book on the coffee table, a psychology textbook with the corner of his mother's _Pride and Prejudice_ peeking out from under it. His thoughts, though, flashed back to Jimmy more than anything else. His image, tense with a sort of grudging acceptance ("Well if you wanna get out of here, can't say I blame you"), flickered in mind before Edgar pushed it away. Now was not the time to get distracted, not with one of the two most powerful beings in Creation waiting for a coherent answer.

"I _like_ the city I'm in. I'm happy there."

"I offer you so much more, though," Diablo pushed on, leaning forward. "Surely, you cannot be so enamored with a mere _corner_ of the universe. You're a creature of intellect, curiosity. You would turn down all of creation for the underbelly of a city you hated in life?"

If only he could explain. If only he understood it himself. "I love this Hell. As tempting as I know you could make the offer, and it's tempting enough as it is, I'm not even sure God himself could make me leave here. It's the only place I've ever felt so… content. Surely you understand, Señor."

"Yes," Diablo replied, slowly, "but do you?"

And then the seat across from him was empty, and the table iron wrought, and the apartment smaller—much smaller, with a window looking down into a street. There was nothing wrong with it, the walls and floors were clean and pleasant, but something in the air was stale and smothering despite the tidiness. Edgar turned towards the door, determined not to linger in his final set of rooms any longer than he had to - and stopped dead in his tracks.

"…Damon?"

A dark-skinned teenager, maybe sixteen, regarded him from the doorway. Every detail was just as Edgar remembered, from the doc martens to the casual slouch. His slight weight creaked against the hinges.

"Miss me?" the boy asked, eyes almost hidden by unnatural shadow.

"…Yes," Edgar murmured. His vision swam.

What… yes, this was a dream, but it had been so long since he saw the boy, so very _long_. Why now? Why tonight? Thousands of questions rushed through his head like a flood submerging a city, so many and so varied that it was all he could do not to collapse under their pressure. He'd been so certain, so _certain_ that they'd never meet again. He'd been so certain he'd never hear that voice again. Why now, why here, why, _why did you do it_ …

And then Damon was inches away from him, pink palms reaching for his teacher's face. "I'm back, Edgar. They let me come back for you. They want you out of Hell, and they sent me here to trade. Up There isn't happy with the way you've been getting around."

Edgar shuddered as Damon touched him, as gentle and solid as the memory of a favorite cousin, as if Edgar was the one who needed reassurance and mentoring. 

"You picked a hell of a time to turn rebel on us, huh?" 

"I," Edgar said. He turned his head aside as he swiped hurriedly at the tear that was trying to escape his lashes. "You should see the kinds of things I get up to these days."

Stolen cars and nightclub lights, the Edgar who dreamed this dream was like a stranger to the Edgar who had quietly drunk his tea across the table from Damon week after week. The most daring thing that Edgar had ever done was tip a flask of liquor into his tea when no one was watching, which no one ever was. He almost couldn't believe he was recognizable. He couldn’t believe Damon didn’t find the change more remarkable, at least worthy of good natured ribbing.

Damon didn't seem to notice the spike of unease. "I bet you're driving all the old bastards insane. Not that I'm not impressed, but I guess they're about ready for you to come home. So, if you come back," he grinned, lopsided, "you get me. Not a bad bargain, huh?"

"I can't be bothering them  _that_ much," Edgar said, although he was thinking of Damned Elize.

"Everything can be perfect now." Damon's grin flashed a little wider, and then it settled into something a little sadder. He looked past Edgar, into the dim apartment. "This is how it should have been, me and you, this apartment… "

 _How_ _it should have been_ …

God, yes, it should have been. Hadn't he thought the same thing, over and over, long nights in the dead of winter? He would have taken Damon away at the first overture, far away from whatever it was that made him so unhappy. They could have emancipated him. Unenrolled him. _Something._

"Come back home," Damon said, and his smile was so perfect, so beneficent it made Edgar's heart quake.

No death, it promised him; no pain. It should have been better, nothing should end that way. But he was here now, wasn't he? Edgar finally got that impossible thing he'd prayed for, long nights in the dead of winter. He'd only had to die to get it, a small price to pay. They could do it over. Damon was here again and he was smiling like—

Something made Edgar stop there. His skin went cold, as if all the life had suddenly drained out of him. This was… wrong. This was wrong. The timing was wrong. Damon never smiled like that, and, and, Damon was _gone_.

"You're not real," Edgar said, realizing it only as the worlds left his mouth. "I don't know what you are, but you aren't real."

"Come on, of course I am."

Edgar took a step back, hands retreated against his chest.

"Don't you want me back?" Damon said, shadowed eyes falling even deeper into blackness. "We can be perfect now, exactly like you wanted. Just like you used to pray for. No moral dilemmas, no messy questions, none of the fuss that goes with life. You're set for _Heaven_ , Edgar, you can have anything you want. You don't know what happiness _is_. Let me show you."

A part of Edgar's mind screamed _yes, yes oh god yes,_ burning for the promise—yes, he deserved this. Yes, he could have it. No one would hurt, no one would care, and god he just needed to feel like love was simple and he _needed_ _to be loved_. Damon reached for him, a child reaching up to be held.

And then his ego got a hold of his screaming id.

"I don't know who you are," Edgar ground out, pushing the body away from his, "or even _what_ you are, but if you don't leave me right now… I'm going to… do… _something_. And you won't like it!"

"Why not?" the creature asked, head tilted. "I am perfect, Edgar. I am perfection— _that_ is what I am. I am whatever you want me to be. Or, perhaps, you have forgotten Damon already? Perhaps this is the wrong form—I assumed that you wanted something simple, something pure… But perhaps you would prefer something more _adult?"_

And then Damon's dark skin faded into white, a smattering of dark freckles spread across his nose—black spiky hair, pierced ears. Jimmy looked at him, now, the same strange shadows cast around his eyes.

"I can be him, if you like. I haven't murdered or raped, or even stolen. I know that it keeps you awake, I know that you think about it when you're alone and Hell is empty and Heaven is silent. You wonder, 'how can I love someone who's done so much wrong? How can I want the best for someone who hurt so many people?' Isn't it horrible?"

This Jimmy who was not Jimmy tapped a finger to his lips. Even his complexion was clearer than the real Jimmy's. "You want him, but he's so _dirty -_ and if you touch him, your hands will dirty too. For all that you cry out desperately in your sleep, aching for arms to hold you and a voice to say it loves you, you can't stand to let him touch you. He's too corrupted."

The creature spread its arms wide, tilting its head again.

"I can be him, perfected. I am the things you love without the things you hate. Think about it, Edgar. You want to be loved. I can love you. If you want this body—" the imposter motioned smoothly towards his hips, "—I can give you this body. It's no sin to be loved, Edgar. What can he give you that I cannot? You went so long without a kiss… or a touch… don't you think you deserve it now?"

The feeling of black-painted nails on his skin cracked Edgar's resolve. It was so tempting… so very tempting…

"Is it so wrong to want to be loved?"

Spiderweb fissures spread through Edgar's will. He let himself be caressed, eyes shuttering closed. 

"Love me," it said, wrapping its other arm around Edgar's waist. "It can be easy. I was made to love. Why should you settle for the damned when you can have perfection? Anything he offers you, I can provide you tenfold. With him, you're nothing—some cure for boredom, some interesting new toy to fuck. I… can love you. He doesn't even know what the word means."

Eyes closed now, Edgar leaned into the fingers on his cheek. Hadn't he wondered? How could you ever know what your friend thinks in the dark privacy of his own mind, and especially when there was so little that was certain in the realm of that twisted landscape? Maybe Edgar was a fool, for thinking that he mattered—maybe he was deluding himself, trying to see good in someone who was so corrupted.

Maybe he was just pitiful, for falling so hopelessly in love with the one person who had looked twice in his direction. Maybe… that was what he deserved for daring to think someone real might care for him.

He hadn't ever been as important to Damon as Damon was to him—now, in the safety of his dreams, he could admit how much that stung. They had been friends, in their way, but the boy left him behind with barely a sentence of apology in a suicide letter, and _God_ , that had hurt so badly, and he had wanted to believe that this time would be different, but Jimmy… Jimmy probably though he was a sucker. The kid just wanted to fuck him, maybe for the satisfaction, maybe because it was convenient. This imposter was right: Jimmy didn't even know the meaning of the word.

But even as he thought it, he remembered-

Lips on his lips, urgent and relentless—the sum of every minute they'd spent together—the way Jimmy talked to him, the way he smiled, the secrets that he'd never shared with anyone else. Images spun around him, fading in and out of the darkening air, memories bursting into life with all the bright strangeness of firing neurons. Wasn't that love?

He'd held Jimmy's mangled heart in his hands for the length of a moment, the sad scarred thing, with all the bites taken out of it. He'd seen Jimmy cry. Wasn't  _that_ love?

"You're wrong," he gasped, turning his face as far away from the vision as possible. "He cares about me, I know he does. Whatever else we are, we're _friends_ , damn it. That's got to be enough."

Dream Jimmy grabbed Edgar's chin and forced it back. "I'm not convinced," it said, low and hard. "A thing like him will never tell you he loves you. You will never, in all the potential eternity ahead of you, hear those words from him. You will die with your Panache on your sleeve, bleeding in his garden. Don't settle, Edgar. You owe him nothing. He's the sinner, not you—I offer you all that you deserve. What can he give you that I cannot?"

"Everything," Edgar said. He grabbed the creature's hands and ripped them away.

The creature gave him a serpentine glare, recoiling. "But you _admit_ he's imperfect."

"I—"

The un-question stopped him short. Wasn't love supposed to be tragic and noble, unbent and untarnished?

Maybe there were happy endings for other people, where perfection was attainable and solid. In his heart of hearts, he had always wanted that kind of life, since he was young and he dreamed of a faceless woman and faceless children and a white picket fence in the suburbs. That was what he wanted. That was what he _always_ wanted. To love and be loved by something that was always beautiful, never went wrong. When the alternative was this dysfunctional mess of a bloody-handed _child_ , how could he turn it down?

But those people weren't real, and nothing is always beautiful. It can't be. That's not a real life.

"The thing _is_ ," Edgar said, "whatever you are, you're not really him. I don't think you even understand the reasons I fell in love with Jimmy in the first place. Your kind of perfection doesn't have his inappropriate jokes or his skewed sense of morals or his ridiculous drinking habits! I love _him_. I don't want some wind-up toy who does whatever I ask no matter what it thinks—I'm in love with a person! Not a toy! No matter how fucked up he is, he's still mine."

Even as the words left his mouth, Edgar startled at them, cupping a hand over his mouth.  _Mine_ , he thought, with a terrible longing. _If only._

"And suppose," the impostor hissed, "in spite of that touching sentiment, he never loves you in return?"

Edgar looked up from his hand. Even in this unreal space, he could taste the burn of old alcohol on his fingers. "You know something?" he said. "I don't care. If I have to be miserable to be happy, I don't even care if I end up some _Cyrano De Bergerac_ dying unrequited in a garden, because all I want is to spend as long as I can with the one person who can make me glad to be dead. And you, you soulless thing, can't give me _anything_ that I want, let alone what I need!"

He stepped back and the world went dark, leaving just the man and the Dream in a universe of darkness. No stars filled the void, no wind shifted it—there was only Edgar, and this thing that claimed to be perfect. And it _was_ perfect, and alien.

"So," it said, eyes narrow in their shadows, "you would trade everything you have ever dreamed of… for one murderer and a pathetic handful of hope?"

"For a soul," Edgar replied, "which I suspect you lack."

There was silence in the void, for a long time. Beyond the edges of their empty universe, Edgar could feel the tug of daylight calling for him.

"I don't suppose you understand what some of us would do to go back up into the light," the creature said, at last. "And happily, at that. It would be no burden to love you."

Edgar looked away, into the endless dark.

"He still thinks that you'll change your mind," it murmured. "But I'm now less certain that he's right. How _do_ you remain loyal to him, knowing all that he's done?"

Edgar shrugged. "The last circle of Hell is reserved for traitors, you know."

"…Yes," it sighed, its voice as dark as the abyss. "I do know."

And in the second before he woke, Edgar heard his own voice like a pulse in the darkness, an echo saying,  _the nature of hell is-_

 

 

 

The next time he woke up, pain was a fuzzy and faded thing. Edgar stretched, and his hand came into sudden, sharp contact with a foreign object, which moaned in protest.

Jimmy.

Why did that feel... so important? Was he forgetting something? He elbowed the sleeping man back into the waking world and returned to the kitchenette for another glass of water, figuring that even if Jimmy slept through the worst of the morning, dehydration was still a problem waiting in the wings. 

What was it... that he couldn't remember?

Back in the living room, or what passed for it, Jimmy cracked open one eye and made a pathetic noise. Edgar held out his cup, a little amused despite himself.

"Looks like you need this," he said, making sure the contents didn't spill all over the tasteless carpeting when Jimmy grabbed for it.

While Jimmy tried to get down as much liquid as possible, Edgar sat beside him trying to remember that dream. An aching pain that went beyond the constraints of a body, and… and something that felt solid where it had once been uncertain. He snuck a glance over at his companion, fuzzy and soft without glasses to bring him into focus. For the first time, there was no question of whether he loved Jimmy. Always before there was some kind of hedging, some kind of hesitation stemming from things he refused to examine. Now, though…

Edgar bit his lip. 

The dream came to him in slivers of scrap fabric, none of them quite connecting to each other. The rain—his childhood home—a spread deck of brochures—and the yawning lightless void, the almost glowing paleness of a creature that was and wasn't Jimmy, lost in the void. Something alien and sad, something perfect.

He regretted being so sharp with it, whatever it was. It was only trying to do what it was built to do.

"Jimmy," he said. He shifted on the arm of the couch, nervous in a way that he couldn't pin down as totally good or totally bad. "If I said I loved you - would you mind that terribly?"

Jimmy choked a little, eyes going wide. "What—" he coughed "—what brought that on?"

Edgar shrugged, daring to flash a half-smile. "It's just that I've never said it before. Maybe it's about time, seeing as it's not exactly a secret."

"I mean," Jimmy said. He wiped hastily at his face with the back of his hand, almost as if he was avoiding Edgar's eye. "It's a free country, say whatever you want."

Edgar tipped his head back, hands folded over his lap. "I love you," he said, testing the words on his tongue. He smiled. When he looked back to Jimmy, the younger man was watching him warily, as tense as if he were about to leap forward, or run away.

"You're so god damn weird," he said, almost reverently. 

"I guess I am. Do you have a hangover?"

Jimmy glanced down. He held his glass in both hands, in front of himself, and said, "Uh… not too much."

"Good." Edgar stood and headed for the counter of the kitchenette, where he seemed to remember putting his glasses down the night before. "Put on your nice fishnets, Jimmy. I want to go out."

 

 

 

The sky was crisp white and the wailing of the damned had a bit of tune to it, today. In the end, Edgar managed to get his companion presentable and walking in the right direction. He'd decided they should try a new restaurant, for once. Something in the universe was lighter, this morning, and he felt like celebrating. It was a fair walk. By the time they reached their destination, they had very nearly dissembled the entire concept of capitalism.

At the door, Edgar called a time-out, making a quick T with his hands.

"Okay," he started, gesturing at a glass door a few steps ahead of them, "this is a pretty nice restaurant, all things considered, so here are the ground rules: no hitting on the staff, no starting fights, no stealing, and no messing with the other customers."

Jimmy looked incredulous. "What the fuck am I supposed to _do_ then?"

"Eat. Act civilized. Leave a tip." Edgar pushed the door open and slid inside, careful not to knock into one of the oriental vases perched precariously around the entrance. Ah, Hell. Something rattled behind him, and he turned just in time to grab one of the ceramic decorations as it toppled towards the floor. He shot Jimmy a dirty look.

"What? They got a mountain of breakables around the freakin' door like they _want_ me to break it."

"That's—" Edgar peered down at the vase in his hands. "…You know, maybe they _do_."

A small woman trotted up to them, expression glazed and smiling, which would be creepy if Edgar didn't know for a fact that everyone in the food service industry ended up looking like that eventually.

"Tôi có thể giúp bạn?" asked the woman, expression unchanging.

"Er… English, please?" He'd been hoping to get the other hostess, since he did not, in fact, speak Vietnamese.

"Don't think you're gonna get anywhere like that, Edgar."

She turned her attention to Jimmy, a spark of something now behind the glazed expression. Her gaze sharpened. "ông là một kẻ ngốc," she said, voice a little less monotone. Then, shockingly, she leaned towards him and cocked a brow. "Nhưng là một kẻ ngốc khá?"

Jimmy looked back and forth between the hostess and his friend, trying to figure out what just happened. "Uh, sure. Yeah."

The woman actually smiled. "Remember you," she said, haltingly. "Một thời gian dài trước—long time ago… you need table? I get table."

She strode off through a jigsaw mess of crowded tables and partitions, moving so quickly the two of them had to jog after her. The trail led to a booth in the back, in an area with fewer patrons and better lighting, and there the hostess stopped. The men looked at each other and, hesitating, took a seat.

"Server be right with you," she informed them, and then with a quick glance around, "This is good seat. đừng—ah, no trouble, okay?"

As she trotted off, Edgar turned his full attention towards Jimmy. "Explain that, would you?"

Jimmy was staring hard after her withdrawing form. "Think I met her back when I first got here. To the real city, I mean. She was… a stripper? Hard to tell if it's her without the pasties and heels."

Jimmy was still staring at the employee door, although she was long gone. His fingers absently shredded a straw wrapper.

"It was back before I saw Nny. Me n' the guys, we went downtown to get in on the chicks and the booze, and we sorta… ended up in her club. Don't give me that look, you know you aren't surprised. Problem-" he held up a finger, "-was that the local clientele wasn't exactly our usual crowd. You know the jock set, not even a pair of bouncing tits is gonna distract 'em once they smell blood. Couple of the drunker guys, they start a fight."

"You got into a fight in a _strip club_. I have really ceased to be surprised."

"Yeah well, I don't much go in for the unwinnable odds thing, and there were a lot more of them than us. So I kinda slip into the back room, sneaky-like. Only, one of the jocksters spots me and comes sneaking in after. Guy was massive. Fuckin' _massive_. He takes a swing at me, and that chick-" he pointed in the hostess' direction, "-pulls me through a curtain, out of the way. Probably saved me a couple teeth. I wait out the brawl with her, in the dressin' room, y'know. Did our nails. She doesn't speak a word of English but she hangs with me till it goes quiet outside."

Edgar tilted his head, fascinated. "Did she want something from you?"

"Nah. Though I did her a solid later that night, so I figure we're even," Jimmy said, scratching the tabletop with one black nail. "Strippers don't get the best treatment, you know? Some jackass with a bruised ego tried to pull her off into the alley and I sorta…" he made a swinging motion, "…caught him from behind."

Edgar held up a finger. "So, wait. What you're saying is that you met a woman who helped you for absolutely _no_ good reason. Presumably out of the goodness of her heart."

"…I _guess_ so."

"And you may have, knowing the darker side of such institutions, saved her life. Certainly you kept her from being raped." Despite everything they'd already discussed, that word still felt uncomfortable on his tongue.

Jimmy sat back. "Oh no, I know what you're trying to do here, I've seen this episode. You want me to admit I'm not really as bad as I think I am, and then we can be all happy and smiley and go out for ice-cream while the laugh track plays."

Edgar gave him a wan smile. "No, you really _are_ as bad as you think you are. At least, you have been in the past. I was thinking more along the lines of—did you catch her name? I didn't see a nametag."

"Ph—Phuong? Something like that."

"Alright. Well, you know how you always say that all people are miserable treacherous little goblins?"

"I've never said the word _goblins_ in my life but yeah, pretty much."

"And in the past you justified a lot of horrible stuff with that."

"Your point?"

Edgar leaned over the table. "My _point_ is, that woman there is a prime example of how wrong you are. She saved your ass for nothing. Do you even think about what you're telling me?"

"She was a one time thing! I never met another half-decent chick before or since, it's like a… it's like a two headed gorilla. It's a freak of nature and it doesn't prove no point. Period."

"Can you put your confirmation bias on hold for a _minute_ here, please."

Jimmy sat forward too, elbows cracking the table as he hissed, "Did you miss the part where that woman's also in Hell, just like me?"

"So she wasn't perfect, but Jimmy, it _happened!_ Do you have any idea what the odds of any one event occurring are? If it happened once, then it's almost certain to happen again, and _again_."

Jimmy looked hard at him. "You got a tendency to see good where there ain't no good to see."

Edgar frowned. That kind of hurt. "Or how about this?" he said. " _You_ have a tendency to assume the worst of people who are actually pretty okay. And how about, I'm not actually the idiot you seem to think I am."

There was silence for a minute, and Jimmy looked uncomfortable. "…'S not that I think you're an idiot, it's just, I… oh, fuck."

Another employee, this one male, stomped over and slammed two glasses of water onto the table with atypical service sector contempt. As he stalked away, Jimmy's broken explanation hung between them.

Finally, Jimmy shook his head, uneven spikes of hair flashing across his forehead. "Okay, okay. I got problems, I know. It's crazy in here, sometimes. " He tapped his temple, grimacing. "I'm willing to admit I'm not... totally objective all the time."

Edgar relented. "Just… trust me. The bad stuff you've seen, that's real. But the good stuff? That's real too. Phuong, or whatever her name is, she helped you when you needed help, and she can barely speak your language. That's genuine goodwill in the world, and from a woman on top of that."

Jimmy blew a puff of air over his bottom lip, propping his chin on his fist. "You always know what to say, don't you?"

"Maybe. _You_ always know what I'm trying to say, don't you?"

"And _I_ hate couples," their waiter interrupted, apparently materializing out of thin air. "So can I just take your order already?"

Edgar looked up at the server, who was burly and towering and had the same delicate features as the hostess, and who looked about ready to bite a chunk out of the table. Well, maybe if he'd give people a little notice before he came popping up to their tables, he wouldn't get caught in the middle of complicated emotional situations. Honestly, wasn't that the first thing they taught you in hospitality school?

"Oh, we're really not a couple—"

"Look, I really don't have all day to deal with a pair of chatty fags, so just straighten your panties out and tell me what you want, and I'll see what I can get you. Make it fast."

Edgar kind of gaped at him.

"…Yeah, uh," Jimmy cut in, "give us something spicy with chicken. And yank that stick out your ass before you come back, I got the real thing here if you're that desperate."

The waiter bit out an acidic _"fruitcake"_ and went stalking back into the kitchen, leaving one pleased Jimmy and a slightly stunned Edgar behind him.

"Well, I think the service's pretty good, how 'bout you?"

Edgar blinked at him. "I was not expecting that. I don't think I've ever been outright insulted by the server before."

"Really?" Jimmy shot a curious look at the man hovering over a far away table. "Happens to me all the time."

 _That's because you piss people off just by breathing_.

Edgar glanced down at the boy's black nails and then up at his eyeliner, then raised a brow. "It occurs to me that you're very much the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to flashy and provocative outfits. Your look screams _fag_ even more loudly than mine." He took a delicate, pointed sip of his drink. "Maybe you're _asking for it_."

Jimmy snorted into his hand, reached across the table, and smacked Edgar's shoulder. "Look at the vocab on you. Damn, I'm such a bad influence. Next thing you know, we'll be out robbing liquor stores together like Bonnie 'n Clyde."

"I severely doubt that," Edgar retorted, rubbing his arm. "If anything, I'm rubbing off on _you_."

A lewd grin slid onto Jimmy's face. "Yeah, I _wish_ you were rubbin' off on me."

Edgar paused. "Do you ever think-" he said, and then bit his tongue.

"Do I ever think  _what?"_

"Um." Edgar held the cup to his mouth, looking away. "When you first met me, you were so convinced I playing up the nice guy routine to get into your pants. You had a bone poking through your leg and I swear you thought I was going to throw you down on the couch and fuck you right through it."

Jimmy gave him a suspicious look. They both remembered that, then.

He took a sip of his water. "Do you ever think about how funny it is that now _you're_ wheeling and dealing to get me to sleep with _you?"_

Jimmy opened his mouth. Jimmy held up a finger. Jimmy took a deep gulp of his drink. 

"Do not," Jimmy said, "start with me, Edgar _Vargas."_

But Edgar didn't need to, because Jimmy had started with himself. And boy did he go. Edgar listened with half an ear as Jimmy's monologue skid off in a series of new directions, none of them actually answering the initial question. Maybe he was avoiding it. Now that Edgar knew Jimmy the way he had come to, in retrospect the whole incident of their second meeting unnerved him. What kind of person _would_ have taken advantage of a situation like that, he wondered. What kind of person had Jimmy taken him for? **** ~~~~

There was real goodwill in the world, that was true. But there was also real evil, it seemed, and that was the burden Jimmy carried.

"—And then," Jimmy was saying, "some guy in a suit comes out of a stall and offers me twenty bucks if he can suck _my_ dick."

"I don't believe you. You're just trying to freak me out."

Jimmy tapped the table. "No, no. True story, swear to Satan. You get all types of weirdos at a Nine-Inch-Heels concert. This one time, Chuey—"

Edgar let him carry the conversation far away from the original question. It was always a pleasure to listen to Jimmy talk, even if the topic was something he didn't really understand. He listened with half an ear, watching the dark glint of Jimmy's nails passing through the air. One drop of sin, the devil had said, blackens snow. Edgar imagined himself sifting through the drifts, searching for the last untouched core of white, unpacking it and holding it up to the light. It had to matter to someone. Even if it only mattered to him, out of all the beings in creation, it had to matter. 

Evil he'd never believed in. But evil - whether he believed in it or not - had changed the shape of the world he walked through. Blackened snow. Evil begets evil. There had to be a place that the misery could finally be laid to rest.

Sometime after silence had settled over the table, a noise from the Jimmy's direction drew Edgar out of his thoughts. He looked at Jimmy, and Jimmy looked back.

"I don't really know what it means to you," Jimmy said, his eyes hard and glittering over the interlocking curve of his knuckles, "but… I _do_ trust you, y'know."

And Edgar smiled and raised his glass. That was good enough for him.

 


	15. Pretty Little Hate Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[playlist]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIi57zhDl78&list=PL18Z5FjZ7wjPCxN6skdv_djg1xb3_bfxx)

"But the Lord says, I will make you pure again in Christ! You there, son, wouldn't you like to be _absolved_ of all your wicked desires?"

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Pretty Little Hate Machine

* * *

 

The interesting thing about Hell was that you didn't need to buy things. The avenues were packed wall to wall with boutiques, insurance firms, home stores, goods and groceries, but none of it  _needed_ to be bought. These bodies functioned as well on nothing as anything, never caught in any more than the phantom memory of hunger or thirst. Aside from the basics of a wardrobe, nobody was forcing you to keep up with trends. Even the rent was free, although if you wanted anything more than a concrete square in a cellblock of more the same, you did have to shell out a hefty pocket full of change. 

Still. You could live in Hell—if you could call it living—for next to nothing, provided you didn't mind the bare essentials. 

Edgar watched a woman throw a brick through the window of an electronics shop which was exactly two minutes late opening up for the morning, clambering through broken glass to get at the latest model of beeper/pager, and wondered what it was all about  _really_ , when you got down to it.

"—I say we get some ice cream," Jimmy said, popping Edgar's thought-bubble.

Edgar shook his head, catching up belatedly with the conversation. "-Why?"

Jimmy gave him a pitying look. "A man really needs a reason to get ice cream in your world? That's sad, dude."

Edgar stood and brushed the concrete dust off his pants, because of course Jimmy had won this argument the moment he started it. "Apparently, my neighborhood of reality is not a particularly desirable one, though it does have some lovely trees on the east side."

Jimmy slung an arm around his shoulder and pushed them off in the direction of The Dimension's Best Yogurt. By now all the marginally respectable establishments were opening up, so there really _was_ no time like the present to get in there. In any case, it was on the way back to Asphodel Fields, which Edgar was determined to call it, despite the rest of the underworld simply referring to it as "the fucking apartments".

"Don't want nothing to do with that neighborhood," Jimmy announced, nose turned up. "Bet it's got rows and rows of white picket fences and apple trees. All the kids play baseball and nobody has sex till they're married."

"What, is my life some kind of fifties sitcom?"

"You can say I'm wrong when the inside of your brain doesn't play like a _Leave it to Beaver_ rerun."

Edgar raised a brow. "You know, there's nothing wrong with a lack of premarital sex. The fact that you couldn't pull it off doesn't-" He stopped. Shit.

Jimmy eyed him, arm still slung over his shoulder, waiting for the rest of the sentence. He wasn't thinking about what Edgar was thinking about, apparently. Probably Edgar should have just casually pushed through the remainder of the joke and changed the subject, but it felt—well, it didn't feel funny now. 

"Anyway," he said, awkwardly, "with my own history, I don't think I qualify for the neighborhood either."

Jimmy gave him another pitying look that spoke volumes. "That ain't even worth the price of admission. You didn't even get fucked properly."

"That was-" Edgar made an irritated noise. "Why do I tell you anything."

"Poor, lonely, vulnerable Edgar." Jimmy pulled him in tight, squeezing him against his side. "Even when you got it, you didn't want it." 

Ducking out from under his friend's arm, Edgar felt his face go hot. "Jesus Christ." 

Jimmy just grinned at him, all of him leaned into it like he was one step from pouncing. "What a waste of a good fuckable body. Now, if you wanna _do_ somethin' about it, y'know I'm always happy to help…"

"Lay off, will you?" Edgar asked, feeling rather tried suddenly. This always came up lately, and he was tired of wiggling out from under the offer over and over again. You tell a guy you love him _once_ , and suddenly he's pulling out the silk bed sheets. Not that Jimmy owned silk bed sheets.

Jimmy's grin faltered. "Well why the fuck not?" he said, crossing his arms. "Whadda I gotta do to get you naked already?"

"Stop talking like you're the villain off a fifties sitcom, for starters?"

Jimmy ignored him. "It's not like you can get pregnant."

"That's _not_ it," Edgar groaned.

"Well then what _is_ it?"

Edgar looked around helplessly. In his head there was a flash of old memory—the creak of pews, a rain-covered window in the middle of winter, an old joke that was never funny—and then he was slamming the door shut on all of that and locking it away the same as he always had, and he couldn't explain any of it because he didn't know himself, didn't _want_ to know himself.

"It's not that."

Jimmy frowned and turned towards him properly, a flash of total seriousness in his grey eyes. "You do want me, don't you?" he said, as if now was not the first time the thought had troubled him.

"Jimmy that's not... something you just ask someone."

Jimmy flicked a hand at him, cutting him off altogether. "I mean, I know you can get hard for me," he said, "but if you actually like me, give me one good reason why you won't let me do this for you. If you don't want me," he said, looking away, aggressively nonchalant, "fine, tell me so. I'll live."

And he waited. He waited for longer than maybe he should have, while Edgar tried to think of something that wasn't a lie but also wasn't the truth. And finally he sighed, uncrossed his arms, and started walking again.

"Never mind, Edgar," he said, boots thumping against the pavement.

Edgar dashed to catch up with him. "It's just—"

"Nah," Jimmy cut him off, "don't sweat it. I'm just being melodramatic. C'mon, let's get a sundae."

Two murdered men continued on their way, a question hanging between them like an empty noose: unanswered, but ignored for the moment.

 

 

 

At the bookstore, Edgar was wrapping up his purchase of an Anne Rice book (maybe with a little research he could hack up something good enough to satisfy the slavering hoards) when a muffled scream just barely penetrated the storefront. Edgar would have been perfectly content to tune it out—the damned spent a lot of time screaming about everything from crushed limbs to dust on their blouses—except that the cashier leaned over to him a moment later and said, lip-piercing flashing:  “Hey, isn’t that, like, your boyfriend?”

“Oh, he’s not my—” Edgar stopped mid-sentence, brain catching up to ears. He looked up at the cashier, who was peering with interest out the front window. There was another muffled scream.

“One moment,” he said, and left the bag on the counter.

He got as far as the window itself when the second man came dashing down the street, blue suit jacket flapping open over his half-tucked shirt. He lurched in his dress shoes, wide eyed as he waved at anyone in range for help. The two or three other pedestrians on the street deliberately looked in any other direction and whistled, beating a quick path in the other direction. Just as the man was about to pass out of Edgar’s view, something hefty and plastic shot through the air and cracked against the back of his skull, launching him down into the asphalt.

Edgar scrambled for the door, fingers slipping on worn brass. The thing that rolled across the asphalt to his feet was a shiny new coffee maker, the price sticker still attached to its side. Edgar picked it up uneasily, checking it for broken parts. As he turned to look back up the street, in the direction it had flown from, Edgar’s heart went into panic mode.

Standing over the body of an absolutely _leveled_ stranger, Jimmy tossed a Macy’s shopping bag to the ground and punched his heel down into the stomach of the man at his feet. Blood spurted out of him like a sprinkler, like juice from a squeezed lemon. There were several red stab wounds in his white shirt.

“Jimmy what _the fuck!”_ Edgar shouted, the coffee maker falling out of his hands with a hollow crack.

Jimmy looked up. There was a spray of blood across the left side of his face, a gruesome hackneyed parody of his real freckles. He wiped at the smear with the back of the hand that wasn’t holding a knife. “Hey Edgar!” he said, “Hold on a second, I’ve just gotta take care of this one thing.”

“If you mean _him_ ,” Edgar said, jabbing a finger at the moaning businessman a few feet away, “that’s not a thing Jimmy! That’s a person!”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. He stepped over the gurgling body at his feet and made his way down the road, the tip of his blade flashing. “Relax,” he said, “it’ll only take a second. You wanna get coffee or something? There’s a place just opened up down the street.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Edgar said, clutching at his own head. “Jimmy you can’t just _stab people in the street!”_

Jimmy cast him an annoyed glance. “It’s not like he won’t get over it, jeeze.”

Edgar lunged forward and intercepted him, catching him by one shoulder and the wrist with the knife. There was a tremble of strain as Jimmy tried to push free of his grip, his pale wrist shaking against Edgar’s fist.

Edgar tightened his hold. The net of Jimmy’s sleeve cut into his fingertips. “What’s going on?" he said, sharp and low. "Talk to me, alright, tell me what’s going on. Do you know them?”

Jimmy rolled his head to the side, glaring up at nothing. “They’re just a couple of smug dickholes, whaddaya want from me?"

"Do you  _know_ them?"

"I know their type. It’s puffed-up cocksuckers like those who used to call the cops on me for sleeping in my car. I can see it in their greedy little fingers, I used to catch ‘em in the windows sometimes, so fucking _smug_ , ten dollar lattes and tie pins, so fucking _psyched_ to see me get frisked in the middle of the street.”

He leaned past Edgar’s shoulder, baring his teeth at the man groaning under a slowly healing concussion. “I heard ‘em in the store talking about how they used to rent to guys like me,” he said. “I know what they do. I know the kindsa things they ask for.”

“Jimmy,” Edgar said, urgent but quietly, “you’re better than this.”

Jimmy showed Edgar his teeth too, not quite a grin, their crooked edges pink with a stranger’s blood. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?” he said. “Move it or lose it, babe.”

Edgar dug his heels in. “I’m not going to let you do this,” he said. “It’s senseless, it doesn’t solve anything.”

“It makes _me_ feel better,” Jimmy said.

“For how long?” Edgar said, “For how long exactly? The world is full of assholes, you can’t get rid of them all! What’s stabbing them going to do at this stage?”

The dully bemused expression on Jimmy's face broke open, spilling real anger across his features. His grip on the knife tightened, working the tendons under Edgar's hold. “It’ll make them afraid!” Jimmy snarled. “It’ll make them hurt! I want to make them hurt, I want to see them bleed!”

Edgar let go of his shoulder and took hold of his face, a palm tightly cupping the edge of his jaw. “Jimmy, come on. This isn’t how you make amends. This doesn’t make anything better.”

Jimmy made a noise of raw, agonized frustration. He wrenched his wrist out of Edgar’s grip, breaking the hold with his other hand. “How can I make amends,” he said, “when I’m still so fucking _angry?”_

Edgar felt his own face twisting, a tight ache in the crease of his forehead. “...I don’t know,” he said. Blood stuck and pulled at his fingers, unexpectedly thick with friction even when wet. “Maybe it starts with choosing not to hurt anyone else.”

Jimmy pressed his lips together. His cheap eyeliner was smearing down into the creases under his eye, streaks of blood glowing orange in the unearthly daylight. In the moment that he stared at Edgar, the thing Edgar saw most of all was thwarted rage, bottled and desperate.

“I don’t think I know how to do anything else,” Jimmy said, at last.

Oh, god damn it. For a moment Edgar wanted nothing more than to hold the boy, draw him in tight and not let go. But that wasn’t something Edgar could do, not in broad daylight in the street, not with everything that he was boiling anxiously in his stomach.

“You pour a lot of energy into hating things,” Edgar said. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to keep his expression under control. “I wish you would pour some of that into loving things instead. You’ve got a right to be angry, but—”

He brought his other hand up to cup Jimmy’s clean and pale cheek. Up close like this, Jimmy’s black ringed eyes were a stormy sea, the churning pattern of green-grey water frozen beneath the lens.

“—but don’t forget what your anger’s done,” Edgar finished.

There was a shuffle of motion. Edgar peered around Jimmy, pushing his head a little to the side to get a better view.

“Oh, look,” he said. “Victim number one is up. Are you going to finish what you started?”

When he turned back, Jimmy was staring at him. Belatedly, Edgar withdrew his hands, one palm smeared sticky and one hand clean. Jimmy watched him retreat, his expression unsettled and uncertain.

“I wish—” he started. He jerked his head, a violent little shake. “You make me want—”

He ducked his head, wiping the blade of his knife on his ratty jeans, leaving darker blots against the black. He flicked it closed and slid it into his back pocket, all without looking up.

“Fine,” he said. “If it means that much to you, whatever. I’ll try.”

Edgar smiled at him, but it was a smile that felt blue on his lips. “I appreciate it,” he said. He took a step back, and then he made to retrieve the coffee maker from the gutter. “Maybe someday you’ll even do it for yourself,” he said.

 

 

 

"What've you always wanted to do?" Jimmy said.

"What do you mean?" Edgar said into the foam of his cup.

Edgar passed Jimmy his coffee. The two of them had found a spot standing against the railing outside of a coffee shop, watching a legion descend on an overturned convertible and on the bags on top of shopping bags that had spilled out of it when it hit the tiny demon in the crosswalk. The tiny demon was fine. The convertible was not.

Jimmy dug a straw out of his pocket and failed to squeeze it through the hole in the lid. "Something you always wanted to do but you couldn't," he said, "when you were alive."

Edgar lifted the cup to his lips and took a tentative sip of boiling café con leche. "Well I always wanted to see a ghost," he said. He glanced sideways at Jimmy. "I guess this counts."

Jimmy groaned at him. "Come the  _fuck_ on, man," he said. "I mean like, stab somebody. Throw yourself out a window. Rob a bank."

In the middle of the road, the tiny demon was getting an ear full of the convertible-owner’s fuming rage, as someone who appeared to be his girlfriend physically wrestled a Bathory’s Secret bag out of the hands of an enterprising pedestrian. One of the car wheels slowly spun on its axel.

“Why would I rob a bank?” Edgar said. “I have a card.”

Jimmy threw his hands up, sloshing coffee through the hole in the lid. “I don’t know, for the thrill? Because it’s cool?”

“Do you want me to rob a bank?” Edgar said. “Is this what you’re getting at? You want me to be your bag man?”

“No!” Jimmy said. “I mean, unless you’re into it! Then yes, absolutely!”

The girlfriend was on the ground by then, slamming her fist into the face of the pedestrian. In her free hand, the ripped shopping bag was clutched above her like a gruesome war trophy, leaking pink tissue paper.

“Alright,” Edgar said, scooping up foam from the edge of the cup. “What did I want to do…”

It was oddly difficult to answer that question, like trying to remember what you wanted for Christmas when a relative put you on the spot. He’d always wanted to watch a show in a theater from the box seat, like the phantom of the opera. He’d always wanted to impress somebody enough that they named a cocktail after him. He’d always wanted to…

“Hmm.” He gave the unlit neon above the street a thoughtful look. “You know what I’ve never been able to do? See a live show somewhere.”

Jimmy spluttered out a mouthful of coffee, coughing hard. As he wiped at his mouth with the back of one hand, coffee dripped from his nose. “What?” he wheezed. “You’ve never—”

Edgar sighed and shook out a napkin, passing it over. “No, not really. I never had any friends who wanted to go, and I didn’t want to go alone.” As Jimmy blew his nose miserably, Edgar lifted the cup from his grip to free up his hands. “Besides, I spent most of high school in the parking lots of hospitals. Not a big party scene.”

Jimmy glanced up at him with his watering eyes. “Fuck _that_ shit, dude,” he said. “You wanna go see a show, we’ll go see a show. There’s always some bullshit going on in this city.”

“Yeah?” Edgar said. He let himself get a little bit excited, like spinning the handle of a faucet just an inch to the left. “Would you… go with me?”

Jimmy squinted at him. “No,” he said, “I’m gonna drop you off at the curb like a soccer mom and then drive to the hair dresser, what the fuck do you think I’m doing here.”

He tossed the napkin onto the sidewalk and took his cup back. In the road ahead of them, the drama seemed to have come to an impasse, as the owner of the car demanded to see the little demon’s insurance and the little demon continued flipping him off. Edgar picked up the crumpled napkin and put it in the trash can.

“Alright,” Jimmy said. “What kinda show you wanna see? It’s easy to find garage band shit playing, might take a little longer to get tickets to something with a budget.”

Edgar didn’t know much about concerts, but he had an idea in his mind of what they should look like, at least. The music itself was sort of incidental.

“It should be something… dim,” he said, slowly, building the scene for himself in his mind. “Loud and crowded. You can feel the drumbeat in your diaphragm. No one is watching you, it’s a crowd packed chest to chest, dozens of strangers all straining for the same stage—”

A thought occurred to him.

“You know what I _really_ never could have done,” he said, staring into the middle distance. “Moshing. It sounds… visceral. A little scary. Satisfying? If I don’t have to worry about having my teeth knocked out forever…”

He paused to check on how Jimmy was receiving this. In fact, the younger man was looking at him as if he’d split his stomach open and pulled out a length of squirming intestine for show and tell. Edgar fiddled nervously with the legs of his glasses.

“Um,” he said. “Is that—weird? Is there some subtext I’m missing out on?”

Jimmy broke into a sudden grin so wide his molars were nearly showing. “What? No. You wanna get down in the pit and whack some jerkoffs, I’m your fucking _guy_.”

“Oh good,” Edgar said, sagging with relief.

“Shit, I know probably half a dozen places we could go. You want really dirty or only sorta dirty?”

Edgar felt his ears got hot. “…Really dirty?” he said.

Jimmy pointed a finger at him. “That is the right fucking answer, Edgar Vargas. Okay, hold up, drink your coffee, I gotta make a call.”

“There’s a payphone down the street,” Edgar said.

In his wake, Edgar sipped café and watched the last of the spilled shopping bags divvied up between several grasping, spray-tanned women. He was tentatively excited, a feeling that hung between his lungs like a single delicate butterfly. He was also trying to ignore several new and colorful anxieties about his age, relative lack of coolness, and complete lack of knowledge about how exactly one accomplishes the _mosh._

Well, if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that he at least couldn’t _die_ of embarrassment.

 

 

 

The venue was a little hole in the wall at the edge of the nightlife district, much further into the dilapidated edges of the city than the Second Circle. The moment Edgar pushed through the door, his head was full of six different kinds of smoke. He was almost absolutely certain there was pot in there somewhere, despite the fact that to these half-real bodies it would be nothing but a strange-smelling curiosity. As Edgar waved the smoke out of his eyes, Jimmy pulled him down through the crowd. The pit was a literal sunken place in front of the stage, three steps deep into the concrete.

“You know how to do this?” Jimmy said to him, straining to be heard over the feedback loop of an electric guitar in a bad quality amplifier.

At the bar, someone was holding a glowing red drink up to the light. In the pit, girls and boys but mostly boys seemed to be throwing themselves against each other, pounding body on body like surf against the shore. Some of them guarded themselves with their bent elbows, but most of them simply threw themselves on the mercy of the tide.

“No!” Edgar shouted, “But how hard can it be?”

“Hope you don’t eat shit!” Jimmy said cheerfully, elbowing Edgar in the shoulder.

Between all the smoke and the flashing steel piercings, Jimmy looked easily at home here. When he craned his neck back to get a look at the bar, Edgar was struck by how differently he held himself when he was at home somewhere. You hardly noticed how tense and standoffish he was in the street until you saw him down in the dark and the dirt, confident and laidback. An unfamiliar mix of feelings twisted Edgar’s gut.

Jimmy turned back, started to say something, and then stopped short.

Edgar blinked and looked away, a little uncertain about being caught in a thought he didn’t fully understand. “Well,” he said. “Once more into the breach, dear friends.”

“Right,” Jimmy said.

Edgar stretched out and cracked his knuckles, making a joke of it. His whole nervous system seemed to be vibrating. “Are you coming down too?”

Jimmy glanced from him down to the pit. “You want me to?”

Well. Yes and no. In a way Edgar wanted to do _everything_ with Jimmy, from drinking coffee at the edge of a car wreck to assembling ikea furniture. But the crowd—the sweating urgent press—

“...I’ve got it,” Edgar said. “I should—I want to try this by myself. Maybe the next song.”

Although his own eyes were on the stage, Edgar could feel Jimmy looking him over hard. He wondered what Jimmy was seeing. Was it the same thing any of these strangers would see if they looked at Edgar?

He thought he saw Jimmy’s tongue run over the corner of his mouth. “You sure you’re gonna be alright out there with all those weirdos?" Jimmy said. "You're not gonna freak out when someone spills their beer on you?"

Edgar flashed him a smile. He worked his wallet free of his unnecessarily tight jeans and offered it to Jimmy. "Get yourself a drink," he said. "Thanks for this. I'd never be able to walk into a place like here if you weren't with me."

Jimmy eyed the wallet, and then swiped it out of Edgar's hand. Blue plastic glinted in the thin fold of leather. Before Edgar could second guess himself, he descended into the pit, and within the length of one half-intelligible chorus, he was swallowed entirely by the coming and going of the audience.

It wasn't quite like anything else he'd experienced, but it wasn't as hard to get the hang of as he had been afraid of. Easier than dancing by far. All you had to do was go where you were thrown.

In the press of bodies, the air was hot and damp and thick in the lungs. Edgar’s glasses slid down his nose a little more with each surge, until finally he had to pull them off entirely or else risk losing them to the floor which had already claimed—by his reckoning—several earrings, a water bottle, a pitcher of beer, and someone’s pink cardigan. They folded up neatly into his hand, although he had nowhere to put them that didn’t risk being crushed against another lurching body. Damn, he should have given these to Jimmy for safe keeping.

The stage became a glowing fuzz of movement, light flashing off metal. Even the crowd around him became an anonymous blur, no two faces completely distinguishable from each other. The free radicals, white shirts and lean arms, tumbled through the surging crowd all shoulders hard chests, and Edgar couldn’t tell the difference between them.

The ever-shifting array of people in front of him sagged and stumbled back into him. He threw himself against their backs, heels squeaking through the beer across the floor, and held them upright—the mass at his back tripped forward and forced him against those same backs—wild breath, heart slamming, one slip away from falling into the crush—

All around him people crowded back away from the thrashing form of some metalhead who seemed to be all arcing ankles and pinwheeling wrists. As he was pushed back, against the body behind him, Edgar's spine hit the hard pane of another chest. The person behind him caught him at the waist, just in time to keep Edgar’s feet from slipping out from beneath him entirely. He found himself pressed tight against whoever they were. They lingered.

The fabric of Edgar’s shirt was tight and soft, and its wrinkles rolled under the hands of this stranger. They slid down over his stomach, following the arc of his hipbones. The stage lights split into stars—Edgar breathed air like it was raw smoke in his throat—he shivered and shook in the hands of this anonymous no-one. It was a thick crowd, they’d all come to see the show, no one would notice if, if

Edgar allowed himself to be handled, parting his arms just the barest bit so that he could be fondled and assessed. He watched the blur of nothing in front of him, hyper aware of every touch just out of his line of sight. They were exploratory, roaming down the length of him in bursts, over all his soft places. His jeans strained against his guilty interest. The music above him roared and thrummed, almost drowning out the anxious flutter of his heart.

He thought—he shouldn’t think—he thought of Jimmy’s hands… the alley, the dance club, a hundred little fleeting touches in the course of navigating a friendship… Edgar’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment longer than they should have, a dangerous impulse in a place like this. The body at his back became the heart of the guilty dark, simultaneously no-one and every thought of Jimmy he’d ever crushed beneath his heel; anonymous and searingly familiar.

With one grip firm over his hip, the person behind him slid their hand down to squeeze Edgar’s crotch. Edgar let out a wreckage of a sound that was lost in the crash and grind of the performance.

One of the white-shirted radicals pinballed through the press, with a lethal elbow that caught Edgar hard in the corner of his chest. He staggered, an arm coming up to catch himself—Christ if he went under here, he really didn’t know how he'd get back up—and managed to get a grip on the arm of whoever was behind him. Plastic bracelets, shiny black rubber twisted like barbed wire, bent under his hand.  Even as they shook him off, levering him back up, Edgar’s stomach dropped.

He knew that hand, with its chipped black paint, and he knew those bracelets.

He started to turn, but the familiar hand caught him by the back of the head and held him still. In his ear, just loudly enough to be heard, Jimmy said, “Come on, no, don’t ruin it.”

Every place that those hands had touched glowed like brands.

“Look,” Jimmy said, “just pretend I’m someone else, okay? Whoever you were pretending I was before, I’ll be them.”

Edgar could almost taste his heart in his throat.

The grip over the side of his head loosened, dragging down over his neck with spidery fingers. “This is good, right?” Jimmy said, something that would have been lost entirely if the very syllables hadn’t been pressed into the skin behind Edgar’s ear.  “Don’t overthink it.”

Fear curled up through Edgar like smoke from a fire that hadn’t yet erupted, invisible beneath sheets and sheets of discarded newspaper.

“I have to,” he started, and then realized Jimmy couldn’t hear him. He twisted, caught Jimmy by the shoulder, and said, “I’m going to get a drink, I’ll be back.”

He pushed through the crowd, slipping like water through the cracks of a stone, and broke free. He pushed his glasses back onto his nose and blinked at the dark. No one noticed him. At the bar he ordered a gin and tonic and breathed hard as the sweat cooled on his neck.

Everything inside of him was smoke and glowing coals, and he thought—how can something that feels so good pump out so much fucking _fear?_

Ice cracked in the plastic cup that the bartender handed him. In the surge of the crowd, for a moment, he caught sight of Jimmy’s eyes. Turned back to watch him, ringed in black, they were heavy with something that Edgar could only tentatively identify as _want_.

He lifted the drink to his lips. Jimmy disappeared again in the mass.

Could he go back down there again? Every cell of his body ached to reclaim that rhythm, that easiness, that _touch._ Part of him was childishly irritated with Jimmy for ruining the moment. It had been so safe when it was only a stranger, someone who could be safely discarded and forgotten at the end of the night, faceless and nameless. If he went back down there, no amount of pretending would change the fact that they both knew, and Jimmy—knowing that Edgar had wanted it, knowing that Edgar wanted _him—_

To let Jimmy touch him like that would be an admission of something much scarier than just admitting maybe being touched like that felt good, that maybe being wanted by _someone_ felt good. 

He sipped his drink. Someone on the stage leapt from the top of a speaker, their boots flashing for a moment in the limelight. He felt strangely present here, from the sweat on his neck to the condensation dripping off his fingers, a little grimy in a physical way. The thought flicked in the back of his head, like a lighter sparking and dying—did I used to feel this real? Did I used to take up this much space?

He wanted to go back down. He wanted to be part of something like the furious urgent joy of the mosh. He wanted to be surrounded by people. He wanted to be _wanted_. Was it such a terrible thing?

Edgar set his cup down. Down at the bottom of the pit, the crowd accepted him like he belonged to it. Half carried and half pushing, Edgar drifted through the wash to where Jimmy was—sweat and glittery eyeshadow, a plastic choker like a lace guillotine scar tight around his neck. He bumped Jimmy’s shoulder in the chaos, leaning hard into it for a single moment of satisfying human heaviness.

“Hey!” he said, as Jimmy did a double take.

“—Hey,” Jimmy said, more the motion of his mouth than sound.

“I’m moving up!” Edgar said, nodding at the press ahead of them. His heart was in his throat again, but this time he swallowed against it. It quavered as Jimmy squinted at him, doing his best to figure out what was going on. Edgar tried not to flinch back from the scrutiny. He pulled his hand away, heels skidding over the ground to hold against a hard tidal surge.

How was it worse for Jimmy to know that Edgar wanted him than to know that Edgar loved him?

He looked ahead, fixing his attention on the stage, and let a gap in the row before him draw him up. In the violence and the bare-toothed joy, for just a little while, Edgar tried to forget who he was. All the animal impulses of his remembered human body, all the wordless hungers—he breathed them out like smoke.

The crowd shouted along with a line of a song that Edgar didn’t know, a hoarse and roaring single exaltation of “You fucking _bitch!”_

When the fleeting shape of fingertips passed over his hips, Edgar did not look back.

 


	16. Hell Breaks Loose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> crack bluebeard's egg

If there be devils, would I were a devil,  
To live and burn in everlasting fire,  
So I might have your company in hell,  
But to torment you with my bitter tongue!

- _Titus Andronicus_

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Hell Breaks Loose

* * *

 

It never rained in Hell. There were no clouds to rain with; it was too pervasively clear for a raindrop to form. Sometimes when the sky went dark, though, fog rose up off the asphalt in billows of choking steam and poured through the streets. You could always tell the morning after—the air almost too thick to breathe, eddies still swirling in places around pedestrian feet.

Early morning, or what passed for it, and the Eye in the Sky was only just peeking over the horizon. For a few days now Edgar had been avoiding public spaces, uneasily aware of a change in his reception among the public. People were starting to glare at him too, even when he was alone. Eyes everywhere, tracking his movements—there was always one on every street, worked into the crowd. He wished they would stop _looking_ at him. 

But in that hour the city was empty, hungover or slinking out of the light with a black parasol at maximum coverage. The city was empty, and thus safe, and Edgar was alone with the whole of the afterlife spread out at his feet. It was almost like those early days, before Jimmy, but altered; there was something mounting in the wings like wind gathering in the north. A storm was brewing. It made him pensive.

Eventually, he came across a familiar figure on the street corner, curled up under one of the sickly trees-that-were-not-trees lining Cocytus Avenue. They weren't trees because trees have living green leaves, and the closest things to leaves these had were twiggy branches that spread out into countless little gray thorns. And under the twisting fingers, Jimmy sat like a ghost with his knees tucked up under his chin, currents of fog swirling around his boots.

He was glaring off into space, so Edgar quietly took a seat next to him and stretched out his legs. "You feel it too?" he asked, leaning back

Jimmy turned to him, and just like that, the dark look evaporated. "Feel what? Boredom? You're fuckin' right I'm bored, there's nothin' to do this time of day."

Edgar smiled. "How _have_ you managed to survive this long in a world without TV?"

"I watch you suck at life," Jimmy said. "It's real entertaining."

"Well it's a comfort to know that my existence has some meaning after all. How shall I serve my God-given purpose today?"

Jimmy grinned, and for the first time the whole expression was genuine. "I dunno, intrigue my mental capacities."

"My, what big words," Edgar said. Jimmy's (still sort of eerie) giggles bounced off the walls and echoed down the empty streets. "Alright. For your astonishing cerebral prowess: what weighs six ounces, sits in a tree, and is very dangerous?"

Jimmy appeared to think about it very seriously for a moment before slamming a fist into his palm. "A sparrow with a _machine gun_."

For a beat, Edgar simply looked at his friend—and then he burst out laughing, so hard that he fell sideways onto the dingy concrete. He lay there gasping while Jimmy looked down at him with this dignified sort of _what are you laughing at_ expression, which just made him laugh harder.

"Well what's the answer _supposed_ to be?" Jimmy demanded, visibly put out.

"It's—hah—not really important—" 

After the laughter and the pouting,  Al rose over the top of the nearest building as the day broke. The clouds around their ankles dissipated into nothing. Edgar traced the lines on his palm while they talked, creating the same shapes over and over. The kid was dressed in one of those striped shirts so popular with the gothic underground these days, and it lent him the appearance of one mass murderer's evil twin—or perhaps the good twin? It was hard to imagine a creature like Johnny having an evil twin. On the other hand…

"I just don't get this whole anime thing," Jimmy was saying, exasperation coloring his voice. "I mean, we got cartoons of our own. We got comic books of our own. It's not gonna go anywhere, you mark my words. Five, ten years from now, nobody's gonna remember this whole _anime_ thing. By 2000, I bet—"

His voice washed over the street, filling empty places with notes of enthusiasm or irritation, painted the air with a spinning palette of rapidly changing emotions. Edgar sat back and listened.

As the last of the morning fog dissipated into steam, they made their way through the streets in search of some kind of breakfast.

 

 

 

To say the Taco Hell was even less agreeable than usual that day would be an understatement of Herculean proportions. By the time that the two of them entered the establishment, a morning crowd had jammed itself into the assortment of booths and formed a curling, disorderly line in front of the cash register. More than twenty pairs of eyes turned towards the door as it swung open, and immediately a low white noise of whispering began to slither between the poorly upholstered seats. Edgar got nervous, fast.

"I'm not liking this," Jimmy whispered out the corner of his mouth, apparently in agreement. "Feels like the start'a somethin' bad."

Edgar's gaze flickered uneasily between damned patrons. "Hopefully no one wants to cause trouble."

Jimmy said, voice still low, "Let's make it fast, okay? You get us some food, I'll get the rest of the shit."

The multitude of eyes locked onto Edgar nearly burned a hole in the back of his neck as he gave a quick little nod and slid into line. In his peripheral vision, he caught the movement of people nudging each other, flashes of recognition going off like cameras throughout the room. 

He was rubbing his hands together hard enough to start a fire when Jimmy came bounding up to his side moments later. Judging by his expression, he'd lost track of the mood of the room entirely. "They have sporks!" he exclaimed, waving a white spoonfork with glee.

Edgar looked around nervously as the whispering jacked up a couple decibels. All eyes zeroed in on the plastic utensil.

"Put it away," Edgar hissed. " _Now_. I don't know why, but that thing's getting them all agitated."

Around the tables, people were starting to stand.

" _This_ thing?" Jimmy frowned, holding the thing up for a closer look. "Well that's—"

The mass of patrons moved in a little closer.

"—That's wacky."

There was a split second of icy silence, and then the room erupted in a tsunami of wild shouts that nearly busted the glass panes in the windows—and riding the crest of that wave, a booming voice cried: "GET THEM!"

Edgar stood stunned as the mob came crashing down at them, but Jimmy was fast—no doubt from years of dodging everyone from the police to his own friends—and jumped over the counter, dragging his friend by the collar. They tumbled to the grimy floor as the mob closed over the spot they'd been standing only seconds before. The cash register burst into flames as a splatter of boiling oil passed over and barely missed their heads. The scent of fries and burning presidents filled the air.

Edgar ducked around the corner of the bar to get a look at the other side. The mob eyed the popping flames warily as more flared up across the oil-slicked countertop—apparently, no one wanted to get too close. For the moment at least, they were at an impasse.

"What the hell did you _do_?" Edgar hissed, teeth gritted.

"I didn't do anything. Why do you _always_ assume I did something?"

"Because you usually do!"

"Do not."

"You literally stole a car not even a week ago?"

"God, let it _go_ Edgar, that was _one time_ —"

_BOOM_

The two men looked up at the blackened remains of the cash register. Edgar felt his jaw drop.

"What in God's name was _in_ there?"

But the fire was dying down with nothing left to burn, and now the mob was creeping closer. One man at the forefront of the mass fixed his bulging eyes on Jimmy with enough focus to unnerve a Jedi. Damnit, if somebody's head exploded-

"Hey you!" Edgar shouted at Bulgy, because he looked like some kind of impromptu leader. "What's your problem? We never did anything to you!"

The crazed man pointed a shaking finger at Jimmy. "That guy _disemboweled_ me with a spork!" he screamed, and around him the masses shook their fists.

"He…"

Rapid images flashed through Edgar's head— _Lone Murderer Spares None,_ three men with a vendetta, _Carnage at the Taco Hell_ , a thin figure with one skeletal hand on the lever, déjà vu in an alley way—

"Of course," Edgar muttered, disgusted with himself. "They think you're Johnny too."

Jimmy opened his mouth to say something, but just then the first wave of the mob flung themselves over the sooty counter and he was suddenly much more interested in rolling sideways and dashing out of the way. He scrambled towards the window. Jimmy took one look at the dusty glass and reached for a chair. Edgar grabbed his arm.

"I am not crawling through broken glass, dead or not!"

"Stay here then!" Jimmy shouted back. He hefted the whole weighty apparatus and swung, blowing out glass and shards of wood onto the street outside. In a flash the T-shirt was over his head, and he threw it over the jagged remains of the window pane almost in the same moment that he vaulted through. Edgar swore and, feeling fingers claw at his back even as he did, leapt after.

He hit the ground in a heap, hands screaming but mostly intact. 

"Did you know that would work?" Edgar demanded, jumping to his feet.

"I told you how I got these scars," Jimmy replied, from the ground, "didn't I?"

Edgar might have inquired further, but a large, angry man was laboriously squeezing through the window after them, and now didn't seem to be the best time for it. Another building stood about ten feet away, and Jimmy dragged them around the corner and into the alley to catch their breath.

Edgar looked at his friend, heart pounding a mile a minute. "Well what now?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me."

They shared an uneasy glance back the way they'd come. They both knew full well that this wasn't exactly the hiding place of the century, and pretty soon the mob was going to remember that the front door was unlocked and come pouring through there. There was still one option -

"We could go back to the apartment," Edgar suggested, trying to look around the side of the building without being seen. "We'd be safe for a while, anyways. Gather up our things." If their luck held, the three stooges from some weeks ago might have decided the apartment belonged to Edgar and forgotten all about it.

"…You still have that knife I gave you?"

Nonplussed, Edgar reached into his pocket for the weapon. "Well, yes. I never leave it."

"Never know when you need one," Jimmy said. His right hand opened to reveal the glittering green edge of his own. "Apartment it is. We can probably lose them if we go though the Fifth Ring. It's a detour, but not by much."

"Alright. Count of three, and then we run for it?"

Jimmy started to nod, and then broke out in silent convulsions, bending in on himself. It took a second to recognize the faint wheeze as laughter, rather than something worse. Edgar squinted at him. Surely now was not the time for hysteria.

"'S just…" Jimmy managed. "Remember how we met? The very first time?"

Oh.

Edgar looked away, and smiled despite himself. Shame that this mob was so much more determined that that first one had been, but then, he supposed the two of them might have had it too good for too long anyway.

"Count of three."

The air burst with a sudden cacophony of voices. They'd found the front door.

"One…"

"two…"

"Three!"

 

 

 

The mad dash carried them all but three blocks to the apartment, when the plan hit a major snag. As Edgar was stepping out from under the shadows of a deserted nightclub, a roadblock planted itself firmly in his path. He glanced back at Jimmy, hoping against hope that these were allies of some sort. Jimmy's expression, unfortunately, said it all.

Two souls, male and female, cracked their knuckles in tandem.

"You want somethin'?" Jimmy snarled at them, black nails digging into his palms until they all but disappeared in the flesh.

The ugly one laughed, a harsh noise that sounded more like a dying animal than a proper human chuckle. The zit-faced woman on his right echoed the sentiment. "Thought you could get away from us, fuckers," the ugly one said, obviously relishing his victory. "You fucking fuckers don't even fucking know."

"He swears more than you," Edgar murmured, glancing quickly at Jimmy, who actually looked a little offended at the insinuation that someone had dared oust him from his position as supreme-disrespectful-bastard.

"Fuckers thought you could fuck everyone over by hiding out here like fucking sissies. Well fuck you cowards, we have you fucking cornered."

In spite of his better judgement, Edgar was impressed. "Do you realize," he said, "that you've used the word 'fuck' in every known grammatical form?"

"Shut the fuck up!" Ugly shouted, pulling something sharp from his pocket. "You fuckers don't have the upper hand _this_ time."

"Yeah," Zits chimed in, "you guys are in trouble now."

Ugly glared at her. "See," he said, a little louder, "I bet you guys thought you could just sneak back to your little homo-cave and have a nice safe fuck while the rest of us were out sniffing around for you. Well, not to-fucking-day, fuckers.

"Oh," Edgar said, "interfix. I forgot you could use it as an interfix."

Ugly jabbed his fat finger at Jimmy. "You, faggot, you think you can off half a city population and get away with it? Not on our watch."

Edgar took a breath and tried to fix things one last time. "You seem to be laboring under a case of mistaken identity. They do look a lot alike, but if you'll just notice—"

He never got to finish his sentence. At that second Zits came flying at him with another of those sharp, ominous objects and probably would have gouged his eye out if Jimmy hadn't managed to get his hand between the point of the knife and Edgar's iris just in time. Metal met flesh. Time stalled.

Blood. The universe zeroed down to nothing but Jimmy's blood and Jimmy's hand and the line of silver speared through it. Nothing but blood, and a sudden snap of rage that ran from Edgar's heart straight down to his fingertips. 

And then Zits reeled back, clutching her own hand, the skin split and gushing blood at the joint of her wrist.

"You son of a bitch!" Zits wailed, "look at this! I've got blood on my shirt!"

Edgar looked down at his own knife, clenched so tightly in his hand that his knuckles were going white. A thin sheen of blood colored the edge. Had he - was that _him?_

The two parties regarded each other warily, nursing their respective wounds.

Ugly seemed to come to a conclusion first. "That sucks for Lucy," he announced, suddenly grinning, as if whether it sucked or not was none of his concern, "but the fuck of it all is that you guys're _still_ outnumbered."

Edgar looked past them, dread in the pit of his stomach, and found the third member of their party in the shadows of the bank across the street, as he started to come down the steps. The unpleasant crew sprouted smiles, one face at a time. Zits—Lucy—was still clutching her blood slick hand, but the cut had been shallow and it was easy to see the wound already beginning to scab over with unearthly speed.

Three vigilantes closed in for the proverbial kill.

Edgar glanced around desperately. Surely there was something he could do, some way to get them out of this mess, some way to make sure that the blood still leaking out of his partner's hand would not be replicated elsewhere on his body. What he needed was a clever plan, or failing at that, a bigger weapon. Edgar considered himself something like a pacifist—do unto others, love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, so on and so forth—and normally he was pretty much against using violence to settle scores, but - 

A part of him was now seething under the surface, even, egging him on. What he needed was a weapon, something bigger, something that topped this miniature arms race. Something to shock and awe, something like…

Edgar looked sideways at his friend, backing away from the crew.

"You know what I just remembered?"

They took a step back, and the strangers took a step forward.

"What?"

They took another step back.

"I'm from Heaven, right?"

The strangers moved closer.

"Yeah? And?"

Edgar eyed the group opposite them and came to a decision.

"I've got one weapon we haven't tried."

Edgar focused on the nearest vigilante, reached down to the very bottom of his decent human soul and dredged up every last drop fear and anger and that black fury that had come rushing up to the surface the second that blood appeared on Jimmy's hand. Edgar found a well of it just waiting to be tapped, and the more he pulled on it the more he found of it, just frothing to blast this guy into oblivion—

There was a gruesome cracking, wet and hollow, and Edgar jolted backwards, eyes flying open to find himself covered in blood. And... brains. In front of him, what remained of Ugly wobbled and toppled down headless onto the concrete.

Jimmy gaped. The remaining two took a good long look at their friend's metaphysical corpse, reevaluated their priorities, and rushed off down the street like the Devil himself was on their heels.

There was a moment of silence while Edgar tried to scrape bits of soul brain off his shirt. That. Was. _Disgusting_.

"Holy shit," Jimmy breathed, at last, swinging around. "You did _not_ tell me you could do that."

Some of the brains had splattered across Jimmy's bare torso. Edgar grimaced at the remaining gore. "I'd forgotten. The angel at the front desk told me about it when I first showed up, you know, five minute orientation. I never imagined I'd have a reason to use it."

"So you just… murdered a guy."

Edgar looked up. "Oh no," he said, taken aback. "He'll be back to himself in a quarter hour or so. Good as new, if a little bit put out. Death is all relative."

"But still," Jimmy insisted, grinning now, "you blew a guy up for me. Now that's _romantic_."

Shaking his head, Edgar gestured for his companion to follow along. They slid back into the shadows.

"If that's your idea of romantic, then I'm glad we aren't dating."

A speculative look passed over the younger man's face, but it was gone before Edgar could remark on it.

 

 

 

Safely locked away in the apartment, the two of them did their best to get the last of the carnage off themselves. In the kitchen, Jimmy scrubbed at himself with a dollar store hand towel. In the living room, Edgar reluctantly pulled his own shirt over his head. The plywood in the corner sat unmoved, unpainted. He never _had_ finished installing that crown molding, and now it looked like he might not have a chance.

"People 'round here made a lotta assumptions," Jimmy muttered, examining the cut across his palm. It was a bloodless gash in the tissue of his hand, almost a stigmata.

"Well," Edgar mused, "perhaps it's no coincidence they're all in Hell."

 _"Me,_ being Johnny." Jimmy made a little scornful noise. "Like I ever did _anything_ on that scale. Jesus. That psycho tore my chest cavity open and smashed my heart with a hammer… and… um… well, I sure as shit never did anything like that."

Edgar refrained from pointing out that he _had_ managed to kill at least two people in a fashion that was acutely unpleasant in its own regard. There was no point in bringing it up; they both knew it anyways.

"I do like the fact they think we're fucking," Jimmy added, after a moment. "Think I'll take it as some kinda complement."

"At least it's not an insult," Edgar muttered. Louder, he said, "With the way you intercepted that stab, it's not surprising people that think we're involved. You know, you can be quite gallant when the mood takes you."

"Don't you start, Edgar Vargas. I saw you blow that guy up. You can be pretty damn violent when _the mood takes you_."

The red wound glittered in the dim kitchen light. Edgar tightened his grip on the brain-splattered shirt, and tried to decide how he felt. "I guess it's funny," he said at last. "People make all these torrid assumptions about me, when I think the only place in Hell that I _haven't_ been is your bedroom."

Jimmy closed his hand. "Well, seems to me… we oughta _rectify_ that situation."

He swung around the corner of the kitchenette and set his hands on the back of the couch, leaning in close to Edgar, eyes glittering. A wave of nerves overtook Edgar for the second time that day.

"What happened to a man's room being his temple?" Edgar asked, not certain that he liked where this was going.

"Say I changed my mind." Jimmy leered up at him, all ivory collarbone and crooked teeth, and Edgar felt terribly naked there in the bright open room. "Do you wanna see it?" Jimmy said.

"Y-yes?" Edgar said, because he  _did_ and he  _had,_ but now he was starting to regret it. "But that's not necessary-"

"Sure it is," Jimmy said, "after you got me all turned on with that gratuitous violence earlier, you can have anything your goody-two-shoes heart desires."

"Really, I don't think—"

But Jimmy had already grabbed his arm and dragged him off to the bedroom, unwilling to take no for an answer. For as long as Edgar had known him, Jimmy’s bedroom had sat tempting and forbidden  at the end of the hall, and Edgar—no fairy tale heroine, no Bluebeard’s wife—up until now had resisted the dark chamber. What it held could only be what remained, after all the toast and tea, after what else the daylight easily held.

He had an uneasy feeling.

There was the unmistakable sound of a door closing behind them—Edgar turned in an instant, heartbeat skyrocketing, just in time to see the handle click. Jimmy grinned at him, palm pressed against the door. He hadn't missed the reflex.

"It's just my room," he said, in a gallows-dark tone that sent shivers up the spine. Edgar remembered it from his first ventures into Jimmy's world, before he knew anything at all about the man he'd inevitably befriended. It was the one that belonged to a murderer.

Edgar took a discreet deep breath and turned back to the room. Regardless of the edge it had him on, there was no way he planned to pass up such an opportunity. He took in the details as quickly as possible, noting the small, disorganized closet and the boots in the corner, and the black sheets over the bed. He smiled uneasily, inspecting a small knife embedded in the plaster.

"No severed heads, then?" he asked.

"Haven't stocked up since I got here. It's tricky convincing the dead to part with them all over again."

Maybe it was the half-lidded look he could almost feel on his skin, but Edgar found he wasn't entirely comfortable with having Jimmy at his back; as he made a quick circuit around the bedroom, Edgar stayed angled towards the boy. Another quick glance back. In the back of his head, he could hear the roar of a glowing, sweating crowd. Something was in the air, and it prickled his skin.

"You look… _nervous,_ " Jimmy pointed out, crossing his arms loosely. "Think I'm gonna chain you to the bed?"

"Of course not," Edgar replied hurriedly, though he couldn't help glancing at the bedpost—just checking to see if that was possible.

Jimmy raised a brow, but his lip twitched unhappily. "What, worried about little old rapist me?"

Palms out, Edgar took a step back. "No, no, I trust you not to do any of that."

"Yeah?" Jimmy eyed him, calculating. There was a flicker in his expression, like switch being flipped on, or a circuit sparking. "Sure you aren't just a little scared? You look like I could hold your _hand_ and give you a heart attack. Maybe you're finally having those second thoughts?"

He came across the room, slowly, like a cat circling something wounded but not yet dead. "All this time," he said, "and all I had to do was drag you into my room. I thought you trusted me."

"I thought _you_ trusted _me!"_ A spark of indignant irritation flared in Edgar's chest.

"I ain't stupid," Jimmy muttered, black disappointment seeping through his voice. He took a step even closer, pressing a hand into Edgar's chest, just above the heart. "You think you're safe? Maybe I can't kill you, but I can still hurt you. Break your neck, fuck you while the bones are healing. Cut right here—" he trailed a finger up to Edgar's neck, "—bleed you out, stop you from screaming… You _oughta_ be scared. Maybe you're just now figuring that out. Better late than never, I guess."

God this was frustrating, but underneath the annoyance Edgar's heartbeat pounded, and he was certain that Jimmy could feel the raging pulse through his skin. Adrenaline was spinning through his body, lighting his nerves ablaze, catching his breath short. And in the place where Jimmy's nail dug a crescent into his flesh, a shiver flashed down through his body. But not precisely, though Jimmy might mistake it, because he was afraid.

It _was_ pretty screwed up that this was turning him on, he guessed. Maybe it would be better if he was afraid.

Jimmy opened his hand and wrapped it around Edgar's neck, thumb pressing into to place below his adams apple, where the racing heartbeat pounded closest against the skin. Edgar let out a shaky breath but refused to flinch.

There was a quiet  _snick_ , as Edgar lifted and opened the blade of his own knife against Jimmy's throat. The edge flashed clean and sharp in the dimness. Jimmy glanced down at it, his fingers still pressed to the pulse. 

"I'm _not_ scared," Edgar said, "and I never have been."

He met the nearly black eyes that searched his own, furiously seeking out some elusive answer. He flicked his knife closed, and pocketed it. Go ahead then, look all you want.

After a moment, Jimmy stepped back to the edge of his bed.

"Then why don't you come here," he murmured, "and prove it."

For the flash of an instant, Edgar was in the crowd—in the alley—with the phantom taste of Jimmy's liquor-bitter lips, the firebrand memory of his hands. Every time he'd flinched back from Jimmy's willing touch, it had been in a moment like this.

Now or never. He stepped forward and pressed his lips against Jimmy's.

It was the same kiss from that disastrous night at Pandemonium, urgent but chaste, with the body beneath him startled to stillness. Despite all his grim taunting, in the moment of Edgar's touch, Jimmy seemed to have no idea what to do. Panic screamed through Edgar's veins, but he only shut his eyes tight and kissed harder, gripping Jimmy's face and holding him in place. No more running. He was tired of running, he was tired of leaking constant smoke and panic. Tired of telling himself _no._ His tongue slid into Jimmy's mouth, curling against the slick inside. Beautiful. The taste was heat and motion, dark and human.

Why had he been so scared of this?

Jimmy seemed to finally realize what was going on and threaded his fingers through Edgar's hair, pressing them as close against each other as humanly possible. His tongue pushed against Edgar's with hungry urgency, as if he was afraid that the older man might come to his senses at any second. Edgar didn't know how to tell him not to be afraid, how to soothe him, except to hold him tighter. 

His pointless lungs began to ache for oxygen, and Edgar's chest insisted that he was suffocating. Panting, he pulled away. Grey eyes burned into him, impossible to read. Jimmy leaned in, wet lips brushing Edgar's ear—a lick along the curve, barely touching, a bite that made his heartbeat jump.

"Let me do it," Jimmy pleaded, breath ghosting past him, sending shivers from the place where saliva lay cooling.

Jimmy slid off the bed and dropped to his knees, one hand clutching Edgar's thigh.

"Just once," he said. "Let me…"

He looked up, licked his lips, and in a second of recognition, Edgar groaned. This, then. Helpless, he tangled his clumsy fingers in the boy's hair and bit the inside of his cheek. Alright, alright. He could do this. How hard could it be?

The sound of a zipper sliced through Edgar's deep breaths. Jimmy curled his fingers around layers of cloth, dragging them down to reveal the straining cock that Edgar completely disavowed. He was all nerves, jumping at every touch, hard and desperate as a teenager grinding desperately into a mattress. He sucked in a breath as Jimmy ran a finger down the length; his knees went weak as Jimmy swiped a fingertip over the head. Jimmy scented weakness. He grinned, and in one lunge, closed his mouth around Edgar's cock so quickly that stars shot across Edgar's vision.

Wet heat enveloped him—he hadn't known something could be so good it _hurt_ —

"Oh, oh my god," he whispered, closing his eyes tightly.

He bit his lip, holding as still as he could, almost shaking with the effort. He could feel Jimmy's tongue stroke the underside, tracing the faint contour of veins. When it pressed into his slit, the shock of screaming nerves was enough to stun his eyes wide open—and the sight was something he could only call earth-shattering, of Jimmy looking up at him with his familiar, beautiful mouth full of dark, throbbing cock.

Edgar clapped a hand over his own face, muffling something that he half did and half didn't want Jimmy to hear.

Jimmy licked the sensation of a smirk against Edgar's cockhead, an expression unmistakable even with his mouth full, and made a little self-satisfied hum. At that shiver through his flesh, that little look, Edgar held himself tight and came, startled and overwhelmed by the suddenness. 

A few panting moments later, Jimmy pulled off him and swallowed. Edgar watched the movement of his throat with dazed appreciation. 

Jimmy rose to his feet, ran a thumb over his lips. "Could've warned me," he muttered, not looking particularly bothered by it. There was a satisfied glitter in his eyes.

Edgar looked away, face burning hotly enough that there might have been a visible change in color. Shit, he fucked it up. "I, ah, I didn't… I've never… you know, that."

"Really?" Jimmy looked him up and down. There was something about the way he did it that made Edgar suspect he was pleased to have been the first. "You really have had nothing but bad sex, huh?"

Mortified, Edgar made to tuck himself back in—he was not about to get roasted while his cock was out, heaven help him—but Jimmy's hand on his wrist stopped him short. He looked down. There was a kind of mirrored deja vu in that, in the memory of the club all those weeks ago and this moment now, a pale hand on his wrist.

"Come on," Jimmy said, pulling back Edgar's wrist, "that was the easy one, and now we get to have _fun_."

"F- fun?" Edgar said.

"Main course," Jimmy said. "Chill out, you've practiced this one."

Not nearly enough practice to deal with  _this_. Edgar stood there, nervous and all but naked, and had no idea what to do with himself. Jimmy slid his hands up Edgar's stomach, tracing the curve of his sternum, a stray thumb barely brushing a nipple. Reflexes completely shot, Edgar gave up and wrapped his arms around the thin waist.

"I don't think we should…"

Jimmy shifted closer, lips just a breath away from lips. "Edgar," he whispered, eyes closed, "I know what you taste like. I'm so hard for you man, come on. Do you _really_ think you can stop now?"

Well when you put it that way, it would be awfully rude to just leave Jimmy hanging. It wasn't such a terrible thing to allow himself to be pulled along, was it? For Jimmy's sake?

"Give me," Edgar said, "just give me a - minute-"

As if to prove how badly he wanted it, as if he thought he _needed_ to, Jimmy took Edgar's hand and dragged it to the strain of his jeans. He moaned softly at the contact, encouraging, as he folded Edgar's hand to squeeze around the shape of it. The moment that Edgar's hand closed around eager flesh and warm denim, he knew he was lost.

Jimmy kissed him, heavy and hard, and Edgar could taste the sex on his tongue, salty and bitter and god that was _his._ The stray thumb found its way back under his shirt, teasing a nipple into a peak until Edgar bit his lip and pressed forward into it, and the sharp nail dug in so deeply that it might have cut.

Even as his own system was trying to cool down, the way Jimmy pulled at him, kneaded him and squeezed him, sent a cascade of want through him. He wanted Jimmy to pull him  _tighter_ , hold him  _harder_ , need him  _more._

"Let me be the guy who does it for you," Jimmy said, muffled against Edgar's skin, "I wanna be the one who-"

Without thinking much about it, Edgar shucked off his jeans once and for all. He ran fingers across barely-visible ribs, delicate collarbones, realizing with a flash of heat how vulnerable the boy was—physically, so easy to break. He touched the inside of the wrist, traced the blue veins that Jimmy had mirrored not so long before, and shuddered as his nails scraped over them. Their mutually assured destruction was Jimmy's fragile bones and Edgar's nuclear desire.

And then Jimmy was looking at him, grey eyes burning. "Bite me," he said, tucking one long finger under Edgar's chin and drawing him up to a place on the side of his neck. "C'mon, man. Bite me."

Unable to refuse him anything, Edgar sank his teeth in. He pulled away, licked the bright red skin, and—for absolutely no good reason—bit down again, harder this time.

"F-fuck…" Jimmy hissed, and threw Edgar down onto the bed.

Glasses came off first, tossed to the floor without ceremony, then the shirt, and by the time Edgar got his senses back Jimmy was straddling him, tugging on his own zipper with shaking haste. His hand brushed Edgar's length, striking fire, and there he paused to consider the slowly waking flesh under his fingers. Quick as lightning, he moved so that hips pressed down into unclothed hips, flesh against hard flesh.

Jimmy held him still and rutted against him, desperately smearing precum between them. Edgar let himself be kissed and manhandled, pressed down into the bed. In that moment, barely even half-hard, he would have happily let Jimmy use him in any way he liked. He gasped between kisses, bit down on a whine—regardless of the fact that he was clearly out of his mind to be here in the first place, he was still not willing to degrade himself as far as begging. He couldn't help, even still, arching up into the body above him to seek out whatever friction he could find.

"Hold on," Jimmy gasped, teeth gritted, fingers white from pressing against the sheets. "Don't wanna waste you on the school kid shit." In a voice that was more breath than sound, he muttered: "Might not get another chance."

Edgar closed his eyes, listening to the frantic pounding in his chest. "I'm really not that picky, you know."

"Yeah?" Jimmy panted, rolling off. From what Edgar could tell, he was reaching for something under the bed. "Lucky thing I am."

And then he was up, tugging off boxers, and Edgar couldn't decide if it was okay to stare at the unashamedly florid cock. Whatever Jimmy had been looking for was in his hand, and with self-satisfied grace, he fell forward in a crouch over Edgar. The view was stunning. Jimmy lowered his head, lips brushing the skin above Edgar's jaw.

"You," he said, "are going to fuck me."

Before Edgar could protest, or even truly process, that comment, Jimmy had the bottle open and his fingers coated in clear liquid. Twisting and arching, Jimmy slid slick fingers into himself.

"What the hell?" Edgar breathed, trying to remember if he'd seen this in any of the little porn he'd come into contact with over the years. A life of straight vanilla porn was not doing him any favors in this situation. In what world was _he_ qualified to run this show?

Jimmy drew a quick breath, but his eyes glanced aside. "Prep," he managed, "much better this way. Just think—" quick breath, "—in a second, this gets to be you."

Edgar saw his wrist twisting and couldn't look away. His own hand slid over the sheets, over his hip, wrapped around his cock for just a touch—Jimmy noticed and caught that hand with his own, stilling it. A bead clear liquid dripped down the boy's thigh. The world flipped, and then Jimmy was flat on the mattress looking up at him, grinning up at him, cool slick fingers lighting against his cock.

"You lead," Jimmy whispered, wrapping his legs around Edgar's waist. His hair was limp over his forehead, his eyeliner was smudged from sweat, and his thin lips were red from hard use.

So Edgar kissed him again.

By the time they parted again, his cock was full and dark and desperate for touch—he hissed when the head bumped up against slick flesh.

He panted as he pushed in, not sure if it was too fast, not sure if it was too slow. God, but that was _nothing_ like he remembered. He tried to find a word, somewhere in the chaos that was currently his mind, for why he was now afraid to move for fear of complete sensory overload.

"Tight," he managed, realizing his eyes were shut.

"I better be," Jimmy shot back, curling his arms loosely around Edgar's neck.

Alright. Alright. He could handle this. He just had to—to think of Jimmy, to make sure it was good for him. 

At the risk of short circuiting his central nervous system, Edgar let himself pull out—ah—and drive back in— _god_ —and then it was the familiar kind of rhythm, in and out, sweet and hot. He caught Jimmy desperately fisting his own length, underneath him. He closed his own hand around the base and stroked it, trying to keep up, knuckles bumping Jimmy's until finally they synced, and then they moved together, like a frantic tide.  _Like that,_ Jimmy said,  _like -_

Each time he thrust in, Jimmy pulled hard against his back, like he was trying to drag Edgar in deeper. His nails bit into Edgar's shoulders. 

"Do you want it," Edgar tried, but had to start over as Jimmy tensed around him, "do you want it harder?"

He could hear Jimmy cursing, moaning _fucks_ and breathy _damns_ , and bent down to cover his mouth again, the sound deep in his throat.

"Okay," he breathed, against Jimmy's mouth, "harder it is."

Jimmy glitched and stuttered out underneath him, muttering unintelligibly as Edgar broke him into a wreckage. " _Yes,"_ Jimmy said, "no, do that _—again, do that again—"_

He must have hit something terrible and wonderful with one thrust, because Jimmy groaned out loud and raked his nails down Edgar's back, hard hot lines into the bare skin. He could feel it building, pressure mounting inside of him, and he quickened his strokes, tightened his fist around Jimmy's cock as they both worked it together. Almost…

Jimmy came into his hand, body snapping rigid, coating their palms with white liquid. There was a gentle choking noise, a breath catching in his throat. Jesus Christ he was pretty like that, all starry-eyed and limp. Edgar held him tight and moved inside of him, urgent and aching with something that was almost a curse, almost an alleluia. 

"Mine-" he choked out, pressing their foreheads together, "please-"

In that moment between one satisfaction and another, in the soft heat of Jimmy's body - in that bare moment, Edgar allowed himself to believe that what he wanted mattered. That all of this mattered. Jimmy looked up, unfocused and loose and gorgeous, and hissed as something inside him lit up with exhausted pleasure.

"Yeah," Jimmy breathed, dazed and vague. "That's... yeah."


	17. Say Goodbye to Hollywood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [I fell a little graceless, and the pavement won the bet ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRRHlad4dk&index=24&list=PL18Z5FjZ7wjPCxN6skdv_djg1xb3_bfxx&t=0s)

"'Though I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries, and have all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love - I am nothing'."

"That's all very good, Mr. Vargas, but I didn't assign _Corinthians._ You were supposed to read _Revelations."_

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Say Goodbye to Hollywood

* * *

 

Familiar scene:

Light pouring in through the window, fabric pressed up against the curve of one cheek, ribs pressed against Edgar's back. The smell of concrete walls. A wrist slung limp over his side. These were the good mornings, he thought to himself in a wordless haze: a place to wake up in and someone to wake up with. He could have stayed like that forever, suspended in time, and finally stumbled his way into the bliss that he had never managed to find in Heaven. A creaky couch and a threadbare apartment, all the comfort that he had ever unknowingly reached for.

Edgar thought himself a smile, his actual face still too unresponsive with sleep to adjust itself. What was _up_ with Jimmy's insistence on sleeping out here on a couch when he had a perfectly good bed to-

Edgar cracked an eye open, suddenly very, very awake.

He was in a bed.

Jimmy's bed.

Before he knew what he was doing, Edgar had thrown himself fully out of bed and onto the floor, nails scrabbling at the carpet in a desperate half-awake attempt at escape. Breath slammed in and out of him, and he'd moved way too fast because now his head was spinning and his vision was screwed up. Oh god…

There was a rustle above him, and Jimmy peered over the edge of the mattress, eyes smudged with yesterday's kohl. He sighed and propped his chin up on one hand, a dull sort of peeved look slinking across his features.

"Don't s'pose you could wait another five minutes before you start freaking out?"

Edgar looked at him. His mouth opened but no sound came out.

Jimmy frowned in sort of a wistful way. "Didn't think so."

It was then that Edgar realized he was really quite naked and snatched the rumpled sheet down off Jimmy's bed, cinching it around his chest like something he'd seen in a soap opera once. Jesus Christ, he was naked in Jimmy's presence and Jimmy had seen him naked and he wasn't wearing any clothes and neither was Jimmy and _oh god he was naked._

Jimmy was still looking at him with this stiff expression. Nothing held still in Edgar's head as he looked from the sheet to the bed to the door. His thoughts were spinning around and around, this tide of guilt and humiliation rising in the gutters and threatening to swallow him up. 

"Oh my god," he groaned, pulling his knees up to his forehead. "I slept with a teenager. I—" _made embarrassing noises and I came in every available orifice and I let him see me naked and what the hell was I thinking, I could have been_ excommunicated _for this…_

"I'm fucking nineteen!" Jimmy snapped. "I'm not some helpless altar boy, you asshole."

"I fucked a teenager," Edgar repeated, mouth going dry. _I let him… God, what was I thinking? He's Jimmy and I'm Edgar and it was never supposed to go this far!_

" _Fuck_ you're bad at this morning-after thing," Jimmy sighed, and said something about coffee that Edgar hardly heard.

Edgar felt the panic splash through his whole body. Beneath it laid a dark landscape of real fear—inexpressible terror at the prospect of pain, the look in a rabbit's eye right before the fox closes its jaws. All the old angles burst into sharp contrast. Everything looked different in the morning light.

"I—You—" Edgar had another awful thought, on top of all the others. "Oh my god, do you have any diseases? Do _I_ have any diseases? Can dead people even get diseases? Christ, was I even allowed to have sex? Oh god, oh, fuck—"

His thoughts ringed him in a crashing wave, trapping him under his own accusations. Memories became reproaches became lists of all the different things he'd done wrong, building steadily on top of each other, every mistake and every possible consequence-

_You're Jimmy and I'm Edgar and this wasn't supposed to happen, this wasn't supposed to—_

"What was I thinking?" he groaned, hardly hearing his own voice. 

"Fuck _you,"_ Jimmy snarled, so venomous that it sliced through even the white noise of horror in Edgar's head. " _Fuck_ you. I can't watch this!"

Jimmy stood up—sweatpants hung off his hips, he must have thrown them on after Edgar passed out last night—stalked to the bedroom door and flung it open, the tarnished knob cracking plaster as it slammed into the wall.

"There! Just leave then!" he shouted, pointing with a trembling hand. "Door's open, nobody's keepin' you here!"

The howling inside Edgar's head reached a single pure note of horror that was almost, in the absence of anything else, silence. Edgar stared at him, uncomprehending. "…You… want me to leave?"

"Why's it matter what _I_ want?" Jimmy said, fists clenched and arms stiff against his sides. "You obviously can't take this shit anymore. Get out of here, before I tie you to the bed after all."

"But I…"

" _What?"_ Jimmy shouted. "I'm trying to do the right thing here! Get _out!_ "

Edgar slowly tightened his grip on the sheet against his chest. "It does matter what you want," he said. "I... did this because you wanted me to."

Jimmy dug his nails into his skull, into his limp messy hair. "You're not supposed to do it because _I_ want you to! You're supposed to do it 'cause  _you_ want to!"

For a moment it was as if everything in Edgar's head had tipped and skidded, the gravity shifting 90 degrees inside of him. Something deep in the heart of him bobbed to the surface, in the shift, something that knew what he had done was sinful and wicked and disgusting, something that would happily provide him any number of reasons to justify that feeling but which lived, and had lived, in him long before he understood the world as a rational adult. Fear seeped out from it like liquid poison.

"Did you want me or not?" Jimmy said, clutching himself so hard his scalp was almost certainly bleeding. "Did you _martyr_ yourself on me?" 

"No, I—" Edgar latched onto the clarity of a question he could answer. "I want you, I've always wanted you. I've never wanted anything the way I want to just touch you, all the time."

Jimmy's grip on himself slackened. "...Yeah?"

"I like touching you," Edgar said. Another thing he was sure of. "More than I should. Enough that it makes me feel like a creep sometimes. I feel like—" he let the sheet fall over his lap. "I feel like a creep. But before you kick me out," he added, "um. Keep in mind. There may still be a mob of crazed citizen out there who think I'm an accessory to murder."

"I'm not kicking you out!" Jimmy said, as he kicked his heel back into the wall. "I'm letting you _leave!_ How are you making me the bad guy here!"

That stopped Edgar short. He walked this conversation back several steps, to the place where he last understood what was happening. "But I don't... _want_ to leave. Can't a guy have a nervous breakdown in the safety of his friend's apartment without getting tossed out on his ear?"

"You... Friend? But I…" Jimmy trailed off, squinting and baffled. "…You want to stay?" ****

"Well it's not like _leaving_ would help anything," Edgar pointed out, twisting the sheets with tense hands. "Just give me a minute, okay? I'm dealing with a metric ton of weird guilt here, not to mention how _embarrassing_ this all is. I'm naked for god's sake."

Jimmy looked at him, as if he was just noticing their situation for the first time. Edgar glanced down at the sheet over his lap and sighed. He didn't blame the kid, really. He hardly understood his own head—how can you be so sure that you want to _stay_ even while you're wishing you could crawl into a hole and die again? The war in his skull was giving him a headache.

"Why'd you do it?" Jimmy asked him, more quietly now. "If you were just gonna freak out like this, why'd you do it?"

"You pushed me... pretty hard," Edgar said, with a weak smile.

"Because I thought you  _wanted it!"_ Jimmy said. "I wouldn't have - if you weren't interested, I'm not - I'm not that person anymore, I don't want to be -"

"Hey, hey," Edgar said, and started to reach up for him, but found that he couldn't quite make the distance. His hand hovered for a moment before curling back in against himself. "I did, I do. I'm just. Conflicted."

There was a heavy silence, the heart beating against raw air, and then Jimmy was the one to look away.

"Is it because I'm damned and all?" Jimmy said. "Or 'cause I'm a guy?"

There was nothing Edgar would have liked better than to say no, or even yes, with definite certainty. But all he knew for sure was that he just felt... bad. As far back as he could remember into this friendship, he'd been putting aside the question of wanting, of wanting _anything,_ as if the very idea of wanting was a thread which would unravel him completely at the first pull. Edgar wasn't allowed to want. Whatever he wanted was inevitably wrong and ugly, incorrect, unacceptable.

Edgar turned his head and sighed. "This isn't about you," he said, "this is about me. I'm not as put together as I like people to think I am."

It wasn't until Edgar's father passed away that he had even allowed himself to think the words _, I am gay_. All his Catholic childhood he had learned that to want anything other than the beneficent mercy of God was a mortal sin—the body was a dumb animal weight on his soul which, with enough leveraged denial, could be taught to suffer in silence. It had been such a long time since he last kneeled for a Mass, but the lesson never truly died in him. It was only overwritten, year by year, until it became the framework of a life lived in brutal loneliness. 

"Everyone thinks it's because I'm afraid of you," Edgar said, scratching the soft flesh of his arm. "You, Diablo, even me sometimes. But it's not you I'm afraid of. I love you." 

With a note of disbelief in his tired voice, Jimmy said, "What about that massive meltdown you had five seconds ago? You _sure_ you still love me?"

From his place on the ground, Edgar shot him an annoyed look. "Of course I do. What, you didn't think some crisis of conscience was going to change that, did you?"

"Uh… well, _yeah_. I mean, you been putting me off for so long—What I done, what I am," he said, shrugging tightly. "Figured I might not see you again, after you got what you wanted."

Edgar felt that like a fist to the sternum. What he hadn't even thought far enough to imagine, Jimmy had already anticipated. Jimmy had gone to sleep last night truly believing that it might be their last night together, that he could be alone come the morning. Maybe he would wake up in an empty bed, or maybe they'd scream and shout and the door would slam behind him, maybe there would be tears and blame and Jimmy would accept it all without flinching. That's what he'd thought. That's what he'd expected.

What had Edgar done to him to make him think that? Did he really seem so fickle? Did he seem so sanctimonious? Or was it just that any fool could see how tightly he was wrapped around his own core of hurt, even when he hardly realized it himself?

"That doesn't make any sense," he managed, mouth dry. "Why were you pushing it so hard? It's not like you're dying to have the house to yourself. I know you like having me around."

A visible struggle flashed behind Jimmy's eyes, but he turned and he closed the door, quietly, and then Edgar couldn't see anything anymore. It seemed to him that they had both been afraid of what they wanted, but how a person could come climbing and clawing towards the very thing that terrified them was beyond his comprehension.

"I've never been able to stop myself from picking at scabs," Jimmy said.

"I don't understand," Edgar said. That was all he could say, all he knew how to say.

"I wanted to show you," Jimmy said, without really turning back. His nails dug into his pale flesh. "I wanted to show you what I could do for you. What I could make you feel. Make something good out of whatever fucked up thing in me wants to hurt people so goddamn bad." **** ~~~~

Edgar watched him, the shape of his body, the invisible weight of the things he carried. They were wrong to have gone this long without talking about Jimmy's past and what it meant. It sat like a knife between them, the devastating thing that Jimmy had tried to clean with the blood from his own body. But a knife never stops being a knife, no matter whose blood is wetting it.

Jimmy came back to him and lay down, exhausted. And they remained like that for a long time, where a word seemed to linger in the silence. Edgar was content to wait for it. He was tired of running, and it was pretty nice to finally lie there without making up excuses.

Jimmy rolled his head against the carpet and looked at Edgar. He opened the hand that lay between them, fingers uncurling. 

"I wanted proof that you… proof that you could really want me, I guess," Jimmy said.

Edgar closed his eyes. "Between the two of us I'm not actually sure who the martyr is."

"Next time we can flip for it?" Jimmy said, a wry edge to his exhaustion. "Watch yourself. I cheat."

Edgar laid his arm back over the ground and set his hand inside of Jimmy's open palm.

"Do you regret it?" Edgar said. **** ~~~~

"D'you?" Jimmy replied.

Edgar considered the ceiling. Honestly, he couldn't bring himself to regret any of it—death, meeting Jimmy, the series of unfortunate events that had once made up his life—when they had all put him here, on the floor of a dingy apartment with Jimmy beside him, and that was all he really wanted out of the universe anyway. "No," he said, at last. "I'd do it again, I think." 

Jimmy frowned. "How come?"

Their hands lay against each other, like a nesting set of spoons. "Because…" he murmured, "because I do want you, I guess. And I'm sick of pretending like it doesn't matter."

Even with all the nerves and the uncertainty, it had been worth it just for that one moment of pure clarity, there at the end. He'd never known how much he could want until he finally had it laid out underneath him, willing and simple. It had been beautiful, while it lasted.

"You fell asleep on me," Jimmy said. "Out like a goddamn light."

Edgar winced. "Sorry," he said. "Two orgasms really took it out of me. Um."

Jimmy closed his hand around Edgar's, threading their fingers together. "Nah," he said. "It was kinda nice. I liked it."

And then, after a moment more, he said, "I want breakfast. Make me waffles."

 

 

 

Edgar was cleaning up the waffle mix and associated pots and pans in the kitchen when Jimmy announced that he was going outside to take a look at the situation on the streets.

He held up a hand. "Before you ask, yeah, I can handle it. You didn't rough me up half as bad as some of the guys I've slept with."

Edgar paused, spoon dripping mix onto the counter. "Is that supposed to make me feel  _good?"_

"I dunno, did you wanna hurt me worse?" Jimmy said, with a flash of teeth. "Cause there's always next time, baby."

A moment too late, Edgar remembered the spoon. As he tossed it into the sink he said, "In all seriousness, I think this is a bad idea. You should let me go. I'm less conspicuous. And better... armed."

"Not a chance. You try to go out there, I'll ductape you to the couch. Those streets're no place for a reasonable guy, head-explodey powers or not."

"But if something awful happens to you, how am I supposed to know? What am I supposed to do?"

"It's only Hell," Jimmy replied, grabbing his knife off the kitchen counter. "What's the worst that can happen?"

As Edgar stood there, batter-speckled and uncertain, Jimmy paused just long enough at the door to flash a mock salute, and then he was gone. Immediate silence swallowed the apartment like a yawning void. There were still dishes to do, but not many. There was light across the floor, but not much.

And so Edgar spent the next indeterminable amount of time alone in the apartment, drinking that last bottle of vodka left over from a few nights before. _The worst that could happen_ , he decided, involved a lot of fire and a crowd of very angry citizens. Which was not even going into all the other not-quite-as-bad-but-still-pretty-fucking-bad scenarios. He doubted those tenacious legions in their city were willing to let a thing go after one night of little luck.

Things can go wrong a hundred different ways—maybe it's your fault, maybe it's just bad luck. But when you reach over the fire, that's where you get hurt. That's where you get burned. And now Edgar had his hand back above the flames, catching smoke in the creases of his palms, because his stupid teenage partner suddenly decided to take responsibility for his problems. Because he'd suddenly decided that _something_ was worth more than his own goddamn well-being.

Edgar wasn't stupid, and he wasn't fool enough not to know what that something was.

"You're supposed to be a coward…" Edgar mumbled to the empty room, downing another mouthful of straight vodka. It tasted vile, but the alcohol calmed his nerves. He didn't have the luxury of worrying about what that made him.

When did his worse half develop a god-forsaken conscience? What happened to the kid who escaped through the window while Edgar was outside trying to bargain with his pursuers? What happened to the kid who hid in the dressing room while his friends fought their way out of a strip bar? What happened to Mr. We're All Out For Ourselves?

Edgar drank some more.

"I'm not a hero," he said, confiding in the air. "I let a friend die, and I let people walk all over me for years, and I wasn't brave enough to fall in love until somebody shoved me into it, but…"

If you want something bad enough, you have to put yourself out on the line. You have to be willing to risk something. That was the point, the point of last night and the point of everything, really. He glanced back at the bedroom, battlefield and hospital, a place that he was worse and better for visiting. There was no going back after that. His hands were burning, slowly but surely, and he couldn't bring himself to draw them out now. 

"—But I'd do anything to keep him safe. I'd do anything to save him."

The room had nothing to reply, and the silence flowed on.

 

 

 

Jimmy stumbled back into the apartment some time later, closing the door and sliding down onto the dingy carpet, a mass of weary resignation. His unstyled hair fell in limp chunks over his eyes, and pulled on over his usual clothes there was an unfamiliar overcoat, pooling at the bend of his elbows.

"'S not good outside."

Edgar—tipsy, by now, but attentive—motioned for him to explain and silently thanked God for his return, because typically useless or not, Somebody Up There had just done him a solid mercy.

With a coat he'd stolen from a retail store and his disconcertingly chaotic hair, Jimmy had been able to slink into town with hardly a second look. The streets of hell were, apparently, a ghost town in more than one sense. He'd thought it strange but kept going, keeping to the side streets and listening out for sounds of civilization, or what passed for it around here. Deep into the heart of the city, Jimmy caught the first vibrations of the coming earthquake: the sound of countless far away voices talking over each other, layer on layer of them melded into one discordant rumble.

He had slunk closer, slipping into alleyways. In the broad crossroad of Cocytus and Styx, a sea of faces had gathered around a makeshift stage on the wide steps of the bank. Jimmy kept to the edge of the building, creeping towards the core of the mob for a better look at it. A figure stood in the far corner, speaking to someone on the ground. Jimmy craned for a better look. Someone nearby had hissed about a faggot, and someone farther away spat about a fascist.

The way Jimmy described it, the group on the steps was some kind of tenuous coalition, none of them anything alike, and at their center were two men as unalike as day and night.

“I know one of ‘em,” Jimmy said, “I saw his band play a couple times. He’s nothing special. The other one didn’t ring a goddamn bell. You know him? Tall black guy, head like a fucked up potato?”

Edgar shook his head.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jimmy said. “They knew Johnny, that’s the part that matters. You wouldn’t fuckin believe how hopped up they’re getting that crowd, talking about it. I mean it’s Hell so, mostly everybody is just talking over each other about how bad they got it, but those two are going at it like a pro-level tag team.”

“You don’t… suppose we could get them to see reason,” Edgar said, because he had to at least _say_ it.

Jimmy screwed up his expression, tongue flicking over his teeth. “That’s the thing,” he said, “even if you could get them to shut up for half a second, there’s another person up on that stage we’d have to contend with.”

While the two mismatched men were shouting at each other, getting more and more wound up by the minute, the last man on the stage stood up, adjusted his tie, and walked to the center of the platform. The crowd cheered. He grinned like a shark, looking out into the frothing mass, and in an instant, Jimmy recognized him.

"Cory," Jimmy said, spitting the name like a curse.

"Cory who?" Edgar asked, nonplussed. "Do I know him?"

Jimmy deflated irritably. "Use your _head,_ Edgar. The guy from the Second Circle? The date rapist?"

Edgar snapped his fingers. "You mean the one you punched."

"Uh… sure. If that's what you remember."

What Edgar _remembered_ was not as much the skeezy jerk as the fit of rage that had overtaken his friend for a few frightening seconds - the wild eyes and clutching hands - and Jimmy, for some reason, wanting to protect him. And him not understanding why, but shaken somewhere deep down in his core by it. Had things already changed even that long ago?

Jimmy thumped his head back into the door, as if that would fix things somehow. "I musta _really_ pissed him off when I stole his car. Man, I am so fucked. Cory could deal coke to a nun. He knows I'm not Johnny, he _knows_. And he doesn't give a shit. "

So that was it then. A city full of quarreling self-centered idiots finally united by their wounded egos and need to inflict reciprocal damage. All it took to get them working together was a couple angry men with a megaphone that they couldn't figure out how to share. 

"So." Edgar corked the vodka, feeling suddenly and direly sober. "What now?"

Jimmy said nothing for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling through his disheveled hair. Outside the window, the white sky turned gray—something sizeable was burning downtown. God, the people in this city couldn't be trusted with a simple _bonfire_.

"Now," Jimmy said, at last, "I ditch this place once and for all. Pick up my shit and leave while I still can."

"And go… where?"

"Dunno. Figure I'll start walking west, see where it takes me. Company can't get any worse, right? Maybe they'll have some goddamn Italian food, wherever I end up. No big deal. I've done it before."

Edgar squinted at him. "You're just going to walk off to God-knows-where without a map or so much as a _clue_ where you're headed? Really? That's your plan?"

Jimmy gave a half-hearted laugh. "Pretty-fucking-much."

In this big weird underworld full of eldritch Lows and feral hellhounds and self-important idiots just waiting to get the drop on someone less fortunate than themselves? In this afterlife full to the brim with all the dregs of the earth above it? Today Edgar was learning how to be afraid for someone besides himself, and he was learning it quickly.

"Alright then," Edgar said. "I'm coming with you."

"What?" Jimmy sat up, startled. "Look, once I'm gone it'll all blow over in a week and they won't remember you even existed. All you have to do is lay low, alright? Wait it out. They got the collective attention span of a brain-damaged rodent anyways."

"I'm coming _with_ you, Jimmy."

"No way," Jimmy said. "You're not cut out for it. You go out the way I'm going, I dunno if you can get back. If you can't get back to Heaven, we don't know what happens to you."

"Heaven's no great shakes anyway," Edgar said, trying to play it tough. To be honest he wasn't sure either. Once comic but now unnerving, the memory of the late French emperor they encountered at the ball surfaced in the back of Edgar's mind. This world wasn't meant to hold souls indefinitely.

But what choice did he have? He'd rather be a little changed than watch the man he loved disappear forever. He'd already survived changing once.

Jimmy pressed his palm against his forehead, dragging at the creased skin. "Look, I'm tired of fucking up your unlife, alright? You've already done way too much for me. I'll be fine. You're always talking about how much you love the city 'n shit, I can't take _that_ away from you, too. It's the last thing you got."

Edgar grabbed his hand and pulled it down between them. In a snapshot second, everything was clear.

"Look at me."

Jimmy looked up.

"I don't give a damn about the city, okay? I never gave a damn about the city. It was you. It was always you. I haven't given up anything I wasn't willing to give up, and I don't regret any of this. You're not asking? That's alright. I'm going whether you like it or not."

It was never the city. He hated this stupid city, with its legion of endless idiots. The only thing that had made it livable was Jimmy.

"Besides," he added, "it wouldn't be any fun around here without you."

Jimmy looked at him, trying to scowl but not having much success. His lips kept twitching. "Edgar Vargas, what the fuck are you?"

Edgar reached out and pulled Jimmy close, the way he hadn't at the door this morning, a hand around the younger man's head. He pressed his face against Jimmy's jaw, eyes falling closed. Jimmy smelled strange and human and familiar, like heat and oil, a tender machine.

"How the fuck should I know?" Edgar whispered. "I just work here."

 

 

 

They had a bag each, with spare clothes and Jimmy's host of weapons wrapped up inside. As they packed, he had told Edgar about how he used to make his own knives and how he always thought that's what he'd be doing for the rest of his life, until Johnny came along. He told Edgar about the knife he would have made for him, if he had the tools. He talked about what it felt like to make something new and beautiful, even something that was designed to kill. 

Now they crept through the hidden streets of Hell, listening out for the tell-tale signs of rioting. They had been moving west for a while now, measuring their progress in blocks rather than uncountable minutes. The edge of the inhabited city was only a few streets ahead, and after that the pavement ran on into a place where all the roads were named _Lethe_ and all the windows were empty but for dust.

Between here and there lay the hulking mass of the Lows.

Edgar reached forward and grabbed his friend's shoulder, nodding towards the great gray monolith. "I ought to say goodbye. You coming?"

Jimmy looked a little apprehensive. “I dunno. I don’t really get him like you do. Feel kinda left out.”

“Ah.” Edgar shifted his feet, uneasy about letting Jimmy out of his sight again after only just getting him back. The absolute worst time for Jimmy to discover terminal selflessness would be while Edgar was inside a building with no way to track him down later.

Jimmy huffed out a breath and grabbed Edgar by the shoulders, steering him across the street. “Just go,” he said. “If you’re so dead set on coming with, you might as well say goodbye.”

They made their way up to the doors, at which point Edgar reluctantly ducked inside and entered the maze, leaving Jimmy at the front. Everything remained as it had been, from the fizzling fluorescent lights to the shadowed racks of tools. This time, though, the labyrinth seemed to open up in front of him, twists and turns as obvious as a well marked street, drawing him deep into the center. Edgar eyed the well-lit fork in the road as he passed. He walked on.

The Help Desk sign came into view with one last turn, its little taped up print-out reading “All questions welcome, few answers”. Edgar called out uncertainly to the ring of light beyond the shelves, where no one appeared to be sitting behind the desk. 

After a second there was a shuffling sound, and a stetson hat appeared over a stack of paper behind the circular desk, followed by a blinking face.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Bondye said, “if that’s what you think.”

“Um, sure.” Edgar decided not to point out the ink smudge on Bondye’s cheek, which looked to be “REQUEST” imprinted backwards.

“What can I do for you two today?” the man asked, stretching discreetly. “All questions welcome.”

Edgar shook his head. “As a matter of fact, I came to say goodbye.”

Bondye slowly lowered his arms and rested them on the table top, sliding forward. “You’re leaving then? Both of you?”

There was a heaviness to the question that caught Edgar off-guard. The man’s brown eyes were thoughtful, distant somehow, in the shadow of his broad brimmed hat. It made Edgar’s heart twist to think of someone else considering Jimmy, appraising him, perhaps finding him wanting.

“I wanted to go with him,” Edgar said, “I offered.”

There was a stirring in the dust of the floor. The yellow light of the hanging fixture wobbled, casting strange shadows over the floor and over Bondye’s features. With a ringing crack of displaced air, Damned Elize materialized on the tile.

“No!” she said, “No no _no!_ Are you seriously letting this happen?” 

She turned to Bondye, clipboard clutched against her chest tight enough that the wood seemed to creak under the strain. Edgar staggered back from the sudden appearance, shoulder meeting shelf with a hard jab. Although she was as rigid and reserved as he had come to expect, outwardly, there was a tremble in her that ruined the effect entirely. In neither of his previous encounters with Elize had Edgar ever seen this much emotion in her affect.

“The paperwork alone!” she said, as Bondye retreated from her rage like a wary reptile. “This isn’t allowed, you can’t just _leave_ heaven!”

“Um,” Edgar said, “Hi, Elize?”

Without looking back, Elize whipped her clipboard at him. He ducked just in time, as the hard corner embedded itself in the display behind him.

“Don’t talk to me you ungrateful son of a bitch,” she said. “Do you have _any_ idea what you’re giving up? I’d rip your legs off right now if they wouldn’t just grow back. And you!” she said, pointing at Bondye, “This is half-cocked, even for you!”

Bondye reached up and gently pushed her sharp finger aside. “Elize, if he wants to go, he can go. He’s not a prisoner.”

“Well what about the other one?” she snapped. 

For a moment, Bondye was silent. Then he turned his head and looked at Edgar.

“You won’t be able to go back,” Bondye said, all his congenial softness gone hard. He looked at Edgar with something almost like concern, something heavy and distant. “Except for the long way, of course. Everything you have here, you’ll lose. Is he worth it?”

“Is he worth-” Edgar said, “is he-”

“I don’t mean to disparage,” Bondye said, holding up a hand. “I’m only wondering. It’s a lot to give up for a person.”

Elize whipped around. “You’re not serious,” she said. “It doesn’t work like that, you can’t just—you can’t just trade for people! This isn’t baseball cards, this is eternity!”

“You know I-” Edgar shook his head. “Look. I grew up on a lot of stuff about Christ the Redeemer and the intercession of the holy spirit and all that business. When they talk about it in chapel, they make it sound like it’s all trumpets and clouds and ineffable mercy.”

“Well la-di-fucking-da for you,” Elize said, her cool alto trembling slightly. “You were a Christian, you were saved, you got a chair!” 

Edgar glared at her. “Do you know what redemption _means?”_ he said. “It means you buy up slaves and you free them. That’s all redemption means, it means cashing out a coupon on somebody’s life. You go down to the market and you buy a person and you set them free.” 

Bondye tilted his head. “You don’t think that’s trumpets and clouds?”

“I think it’s dirty work,” Edgar said, “hard human work. There’s always a cost to doing the right thing.”

“If you’re willing to pay it,” Bondye said. 

Elize lifted her shaking hand and curled her finger. The embedded clipboard in the shelf rattled free and clipped Edgar on the back of the head as it zipped across the room, into Elize’s waiting hand. Edgar tried not to make it obvious as he rubbed the back of his stinging head.

“You’ve lost it,” she told Edgar, lip curling in a sneer. “Look at you, you’re a sweaty irritable wreck. Whatever you’ve been doing down here, it’s rotted the bliss right out of you. You’re corrupted. I can see the want just _dripping_ off you!”

The implication hit like a fist, bruising against his ribs, and Edgar flinched. It took him a moment to say anything at all. 

“Is it so terrible,” he managed, barely more than a whisper, “to want things?”

Elize let out a terrible, sawing noise of frustration and whirled on Bondye. “Fine!” she said. “If that’s how it is then that’s how it is! What’s it got to do with me, I just work here!”

The crack of displaced air rattled the shelves. Dust lifted itself from the ground and rained through the air, swirling in the glow of the overhead like flakes in a snowglobe. Bondye watched the empty space where Elize had been for a moment, and then turned back to Edgar with a neutral expression.

“I don’t suppose I need to warn you what you’re losing by going with him,” he said.

Edgar blanched. “It’s probably better if I don’t know,” he said, “it’ll be harder for me to miss it.”

“You sure about this?” Bondye said. “No shame in second thoughts.”

“It’ll be alright,” Edgar said, taking a deep breath. “We’ll have each other. It’ll be alright.”

“Ah. You have faith?”

Edgar scratched off a speck of errant dust on his shirt. “No,” he said. “I’m at a point where I don’t think I know what faith is anymore. I just know it’s what I have to do.”

“If you feel responsible-”

“What? No.” Edgar looked up. “Look, I really care about him too. I couldn’t let him go running off into terra incognita without someone to watch his back. He says he can take care of himself—” Edgar looked back the way he’d come, fondly, “—but he’ll end up in a death match with Cerberus if I’m not there to drag him away.”

After a moment, his smile fell. “I wish Elize wouldn’t take my whole... _existence..._  so personally,” he said. “I know Heaven is supposed to be a kind of… freedom from desire, but I just never… I just never understood how that was supposed to work.”

“In order to be free of desire,” Bondye said, “wouldn’t you need to know what you were desiring in the first place?”

Edgar narrowed his eyes, but the man behind the desk betrayed nothing. He only waited with gently interested patience, his rolled up sleeves around his bent elbows. In Edgar's memory, he passed from the specter of Elize to the memory of the dream creature, the echo of sadness in the void, and wondered if _desire_ had ever really been the problem with any of them.

“What would you say,” Edgar started, “the nature of Hell is?”

Bondye blinked at him. He rested his cheek on his fist, the slim pink edge of his palm bright against his dark jaw. “What do you think it is?”

Edgar twisted his mouth into a frown. “Well,” he said. “This is supposed to be the one place God’s love can’t reach, so, I guess I’d say it’s loneliness.”

“Oh,” Bondye said, “love can reach anywhere.”

Edgar’s treacherous mind flitted to Jimmy for just a moment, to the bare and secret ridge of his spine, his grabby fingers prodding at the tines of dangerous tools. But that was only his own love, and his love was finite and human. A poor substitute for the divine, surely.

“I’d say,” Bondye went on, observing Edgar with interest, “you’re changed very much now from whoever you were when you first arrived in Hell.”

Edgar considered himself, running a thumb over the soft inside of his elbow where a blue vein was just visible beneath the surface. Of course he was changed. Hard to say if it was a change for the better, in the face of everything he'd been told, but it was certainly a change. 

All his life he had been a creature curled tight inside a shell on the sea shore. He had tried to make himself an island. When he had reached unthinkingly for Jimmy, touched his fragile human skin, for a moment he had felt the endless depth of the ocean. He was alone because he had made himself alone, as if it might save him, but all it had ever done was trap him inside of that tiny fragile shell. He wanted. He hoped. He had never dared to do that before. The ocean was vast, but it was also alive. Everything that could destroy him might also save him. 

“We are none of us anything without love,” Bondye said. “Loving was never hard for you. But Mister Vargas, to let yourself ask for love is just as important.”

Edgar closed his hand over his chest, over the phantom ache. Did Jimmy love him? _Could_ Jimmy love him? It had taken all he had within him just to let himself hope.

“Now,” Bondye said, “you and your friend go on your way, into the great Unknown for a second time. I’ve heard it’s easier when you can go in company, but then, that’s one thing I’ve never been able to test for myself. I would wish you all luck in _Peyi a Konnen_ , the lands which exist beyond the edge of the world.”

Edgar looked away, unexpectedly humbled by the weight of the thing he was undertaking. “Thanks, Bondye. Do you… know what’s out there? Where we’re headed?”

“That would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

Edgar huffed a breath, half exasperation and half laughter. “Why did I think I was going to get a straight answer out of anyone?”

“If it’s any consolation, Mister Vargas,” Bondye said. “I have faith in  _you.”_

Edgar smiled despite himself and stood, tucked the chair back in. “Thanks for the company,” he said, offering his open palm. “I hope you get out of Hell soon.”

Bondye shook the proffered hand, the secret smile returning. “You’re always welcome, but this is just my local office.”

There was a rumble, in the darkness, and Edgar turned to find the whole maze retracting into itself. The winding path from center to exit became a long hall, where the white glow of daylight blazed far away. Some ways away from the door, Jimmy startled up from a display of machetes. He looked down the clear shot of the long hall with wide eyes, ready to bolt.

“It’s okay!” Edgar called, hoping that this was true. “It’s just—it’s just more weird Hell stuff!”

For a moment Jimmy didn’t move. His finger on the knife edge seemed more incidental than anything else. But then he shrugged and peered past Edgar towards desk with an irreverent little wave, fingers flicking through the air. Edgar swallowed down a bittersweet smile. The chapter was closing behind them, just as surely as a certain man named Cory was going to be very disappointed when his mob at last kicked in the door to the right apartment. 

“Hey,” Jimmy called, “are we going or what? I’m about ready to blow this popsicle stand.”

Edgar cupped a hand around his mouth and called back, “Just hold on, okay? I’m trying to—”

He looked back.

He was alone.

No Bondye.

Not even the hat.

“Jimmy, please tell me you saw that!” he shouted, dashing towards the exit. “He was just here! I saw him!”

Jimmy craned his neck for another look at the empty desk. “Son of a bitch,” he remarked, with vague interest. 

“Where’d he _go?”_

Jimmy shrugged. “Hell if I know. C'mon, let’s hit the road already.”

Edgar looked helplessly back at the Service Desk, searching the white stacks of paperwork for brown skin. The enclave sat empty, as if it had never been manned, and spare papers fluttered across the gray tile like little ghosts.

“I can’t believe that,” he muttered, as they made their way back into the labyrinth. “Just when I had this place figured out…”

Jimmy slapped his back, grinning. “—you figure out you don’t know shit. Yeah. Welcome to the club.”

They walked in silence, tracing the maze’s flattened contours back as easily as the line of a railroad, back towards the opening where they had secured that first piece of string. Behind them, the place where the rat people lay hibernating, the place where the fork in the road veering off into nothing, had unfolded into nothingness.

Edgar looked down at the bag in Jimmy’s hand, stuffed with his four outfits and three of Jimmy’s knives. Maybe everybody paid for the things they did in different ways, and maybe the Church of his childhood had at least been right when they taught little Edgar that anyone could be saved. He didn’t know. But he did know—he was pretty sure at least—that there were three things everyone got, one way or another. And he’d take his dues, even if no one wanted to make it easy for him.

“Hey Jimmy,” Edgar said, at last. “Do you think you learned a lesson from all of this?”

Jimmy gave him a funny look, eyelids all squinted up. “Was I supposed to be taking notes or something?”

Edgar shook his head. “Nevermind,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Outside the sky was white above the road, stretched on into the distance. He looked ahead at the crossroad where a sign post stood, whose northern arrow read “Lethe”, and whose Western arrow read “Lethe” also. He took a deep, steadying breath. 

“Hey,” Jimmy said. 

“Hm?”

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. He held out his hand, pale and open. “I’m gonna take care of you.”

Edgar looked at him, at his grey eyes, and something caught in his throat. He lifted his own hand. The fingers trembled, uncertain.

Jimmy took his hand and grinned, a promise and a confession all in one, stealing his breath. How had he ever worried that Jimmy didn't love him, when this was the most loved he had ever felt? Every cell of his body glowed with it. There was no point in thanks, now—no point in apologies. _Peyi a Konnen_ awaited.

It was time for them to go.

 

 

 

Somewhere in the universe, you could hear a pocket full of change jingling.

Following it back through the darkness, through bright rings and yawning voids, through constellations of philosophy and the strange angles of imaginary realities, you will find yourself in a corner of creation, a little bistro at the end of the universe. The sign at the door says "now seating all", and the hostess smiles at you, as if she knows you well and she's glad to see you back again. There is a table in the back, a private little spot where the light is dimmer and the tabletop is worn to smoothness.

In the kitchen, in a dreamy soprano, someone is singing, _"I'm just a poor - wayfaring stranger-"_

A dark skinned man waits on the left side of the booth, looking over the menu with the eye of someone who knows each line by heart but never tires of the reading. He smiles to himself, because he is patient.

The jingling comes from the pocket of a middle-aged, lawyerly gentleman. He strides across the room, sidestepping tables and patrons who seem to fade in and out around him. He scowls, because he is not patient, and now he's late as well.

"Bondye," the lawyerly gentleman acknowledges.

"Señor." 

The gentleman slides into the waiting booth. "I know I'm late," he sighs. "There was this tour bus full of politicians that went over the edge of the Grand Canyon, and we had some trouble accommodating all of them on such little notice. I'm not omnipotent, unlike some people."

"And if you _were_ ," Bondye says, "you'd understand that it's a bit more complicated than that."

"See, that right there. Now you're just rubbing my face in it."

Bondye smiles and catches the waitress's eye, watching as she bustles off to fix their usuals. They know him here. Of course, they know him _everywhere_ , but it's nice to be recognized from time to time.

"Are you _quite_ sure about that manifestation?" the gentleman says, lip curling. "A _cowboy_ , really. What does it have to do with anything?"

Bondye settles his cheek into his palm. "And you're as dependable as ever, I see. You might consider having a little more fun with it, you know. You don't have to be a lawyer _every_ time."

"Well my _wife_ certainly likes it," the gentleman retorts. He flicks the torn scrap of a straw wrapped from the table. "You know I have a son now."

"I know," Bondye says, endeared and amused, hiding the corner of his smile in his palm.

The gentleman makes a sour face at all of this. "You were _meddling,"_ he says, changing the subject abruptly. "That doesn't count as a win, if you were nudging the pieces."

"No more than you were," Bondye says.

"He'd be better off working for me," the gentleman says, with a stiff little shrug. "We have benefits. Chiropractic."

"Chiropractic," Bondye repeats. He doesn't need to remind his companion whose side it was that even invented the concept of chiropractic chicanery.  

At this very moment, he is tracing the ridge of the Mariana Trench on foot - he is waiting in line for a bus to Reno - and he is in a thousand thousand other little nowheres, including the waiting room of a man who truly believes that he can realign your chakras for a simple payment of 75 USD once a week. He knows all about _chiropractic._

The waitress sidles up to the table in her pink dress, apron stained with something that glitters like a smear of raw nebula. "Coffee for you, dear?" she asks the newcomer.

"Regular," Diablo says, with a flick of his finger. "I can't stand anti-matter, it's always got that slightly burnt taste."

The waitress gathers up the empty cup in front of Bondye and glides off, taking all her eldritch customer service knowledge with her.

"I don't see why you still insist on these bets," Bondye muses, "when you know I never lose."

"I was _this_ close with Job, I tell you," Diablo insists for the thousandth time. " _This_ close. One of these millennia, I'm going to convince you."

"No you're not," Bondye says, gently amused.

Diablo looks irked. "You made a mistake with humanity, just mark my words. Someday you'll see I had the right of it."

A companionable silence settles over the table. In the lull, Diablo grudgingly admits to himself that he does look forward to these meetings, and he'd certainly rather be here than back at headquarters—perhaps ruling in Hell is better than serving in Heaven, but it's a lot more headaches and even _more_ paperwork still. And if anyone in the universe would understand that, it's Bondye.

There was really only one thing Bondye never understood. The devil knows what people like Vargas say about him. He doesn't care for it.

Bondye is smiling, still, ineffable and silent. There is a fading at his edges as well, but then, that's always been there. Even now, during this conversation, he is in the desert under the dark omen of a coming sandstorm, he is sleeping under a newspaper on a train in Russia, and he is pushing a cart through the maternity ward of a hospital. The only place he is guaranteed not to be, at this exact moment, is in Hell. 

Many things are true. Bondye is just another name, another face, one of a countless number cast out like lines from the throne. Even the devil himself doesn't fully understand, though he's been here from the beginning, seen all the mysteries first hand. But Hell alone belongs to the devil, and without Vargas there to draw a wake back up to the surface, all its mundane little terrors are closed away from Bondye once more.

"Where _are_ you going to put them?" he asks. "You can't just let them run loose in the liminal space."

"What do _you_ think I should do with them?"

"My business is torture now," Diablo says. He takes a sullen sip of the coffee placed at his elbow. "You know what _I_ think you should do with the whole murderous fleshy lot of them."

The thing that people like Vargas never seem to understand is that Diablo went into the pit on his own accord, and closed the place behind himself. He's no less stubborn now than he was when the earth was new. No matter how much he might like to open up that depth to the light at times - no matter how even just being here, in the neutral cosmos, soaking up a thousandth of the attention he used to live in like the very air a nightingale breathes -

His expression softens after a moment. "I suppose they'll be happy, wherever they wind up."

A bottle of wine sits between them, surprised to find itself suddenly on a table in a corner of a restaurant at the edge of the universe. Bondye pours them both a glass, the ineffable smile drawing all things into its gravitation.

"I know they don't serve it here," he says, with a conspiratorial wink. "I'll tip appropriately."

"You don't need to explain yourself to me," Diablo says. "I _invented_ carrying outside food into restaurants."

The wine is an 1864, private vineyard, red as stained glass where it catches the light. In a place like this, the most you can say is that it is certainly 5 o'clock _somewhere._

"A toast," Bondye suggests. "To free will. May you never know what's coming next."

It's going to taste terrible after that coffee, but Diablo accepts it anyhow. 

"Quite," he replies.

In the dim corner of a restaurant at the edge of the universe, God and the devil clink glasses—a waitress washes glittering star matter from her hands—and somewhere in the wide expanse of the creation, a sun bursts into life.

END


	18. Second Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Little More Dramedy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone who would like to read (or reread) the original "A Little More Comedy" can find it on my [ fic blog](http://desdemonafiction.tumblr.com/tagged/A-Little-More-Comedy/chrono). It's about 7 chapters long, and a bit different.
> 
>  
> 
> [obligatory playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL18Z5FjZ7wjM9hqCS74pwBAn9rlhny9sw)

"and you shall stand by Lethe, but far hence,  
there, where the spirits go to wash themselves  
when their guilt has been removed by penitence."

Dante, _I_ _nferno_

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Second Chances

* * *

 

When Edgar Vargas was eight years old, on a walk with his mother through the park, he passed a baby carriage. The baby was crying, but its mother was distracted by an argument she was having with its father. He did not remember this afterward, nor did the baby.

 

When Edgar Vargas was eighteen years old, freshly summa cum laude, he allowed the parents of a classmate to drive him to the pizza place where the rest of the student council were celebrating their new diplomas together. In the middle of forcing himself to eat his celebratory slice, he was interrupted by a commotion at a nearby booth. One kid among a team of snickering fifth-graders stood up, ripped off his jersey, and called one of his classmates a name that to this day Edgar cannot remember without having to smother a laugh.

 

When Edgar Vargas was twenty-one years old, he pretended to ignore a domestic dispute between a teenager and a father during the interminably long elevator ride up to a law firm that specialized in the writing and reading of wills. He refused to feel the resentment that threatened to burn through him like acid in the throat at the knowledge that other boys in the world had fathers, when he no longer did.

 

When Edgar Vargas was twenty-five, he passed the flashing lights of a police officer on his way home from grocery shopping for one. He did not stop. In the flare of his headlights, he could make out nothing but the crackle of glass from a shattered beer bottle scattered across the asphalt. 

 

When Edgar Vargas was twenty-six, he stopped at a gas station to fill up for the week. It was only three weeks until the school year started. He was certain he could make his summer paycheck last three weeks, if they would just stop calling him in to the school for follow up interviews and tell him they were keeping him on already.

The night was falling sullenly, not quite ready to take up the shift after the sleepless wake of summertime. Edgar watched the sky bruising a hard magenta over the yellow neon of the store roof, absently reviewing his finances, and did not notice the car pulling up into the filling station until it screeched on its brakes and just barely swerved to avoid hitting the cement pillar. Edgar jumped, accidentally pulling the nozzle free of the gas tank, and splashed foul smelling liquid across his shoes.

The car in the filling station across from him was a slate gray convertible, mud slashed across its front as if it had been driven down back roads it almost certainly wasn't built to accommodate. The driver's door swung open, thumping into the stand, and deposited a young man onto the stained concrete. He stumbled, catching himself on the car door—his pale face was twisted with nausea, his hair grease-wet.

Edgar paused, gas and shoes and nozzle utterly forgotten, as he watched the pitiful creature struggle to regain his balance. He hovered at that range of ages where it was difficult for a stranger to put their finger on precisely how old he might be, but he was clearly drunk off his ass.

"Are you alright?" Edgar asked, hanging up the nozzle once and for all, although there were still five dollars on his tab.

The young man looked up at him, and in the grimace of his expression, his slate grey eyes radiated heat like the coals that Edgar's father had always warned him never to touch, even when they appeared lightless and inert. _"Fine,"_ he answered.

For a moment, Edgar was breathless with deja vu, compelled and confounded, and then the next thing he knew, he had pushed through the middle space. The flesh under his hand was flushed, a little damp, where he pressed it to the boy's forehead. The boy blinked at Edgar, as if he also had no idea how Edgar had come to be touching him.

"You shouldn't be driving like this," Edgar said, peering past him at the entirely empty bottle of grey goose propped up in the passenger seat like a second rider. "I can't believe you can even _see_ straight."

Belatedly, the boy sank his black nails into Edgar's wrist and wrenched him free. "Hands off the merchandise, babe."

The boy's resentful retreat took him all of one shuffling step back, at which point he hit the car with his back and jolted, slumping forward in tight misery. Edgar narrowed his eyes. Too fast to be stopped, too fast to stop himself either, he closed in and wrapped an arm around the boy's back. He slid his palm across the worn-out t-shirt until he hit a spot that made the boy twist and snarl in pain.

"What is that?" Edgar asked, almost certain that he felt a pad of gauze taped to the flesh.

"It's none of your business, creep," the boy said.

Edgar flinched. It occurred to him too late that he had nearly enfolded a stranger into his embrace, without a thought of consideration for his actions. He quickly withdrew, clutching his hand to his chest as if it had been burned.

"Sorry," he said. And then, because he had never known when to let something go: "But you really _shouldn't_ be driving like this, you look like you're going to pass out at any moment."

" _You_ look like," Jimmy started, "look like you're - you -"

And then he dropped to his knees and hurled clear liquid onto the concrete.

It took Edgar only five minutes to get both of their cars pulled over to the side of the parking lot, one wheel half up on the ragged grass. He got the kid up from where he'd left him, sitting curled into himself on the curb, and laid him down in the back seat of his unglamorous but functional Volvo. There was a chance that someone would try to steal the convertible if they left it here overnight, but Edgar was currently less concerned about that than he was about the likelihood of this teenager careening off the road and straight through some family's living room.

With his miserable cargo safely closed into the back, Edgar slid into the driver's seat and flicked on the overhead light, examining the driver's license he had retrieved post-hurling and pre-loading. The address listed was in a city at least an hour away, which Edgar had no idea how to reach, and furthermore did not think he could beat this illness to. He turned, glancing over his shoulder at the curled up wastrel in his backseat.

 _Jimmy_ the license said, as if that were his given name. Well, maybe it was.

"Hey, kid," he said, as gently as he could. "I don't know what to do with you and I'm honestly at a loss here, so I'm going to take you back to my place. Okay?"

Jimmy groaned, curling into himself, and Edgar took that as an affirmative. He pulled it out of park and drove away from the gas station, leaving only wet concrete and an empty car behind him.

 

 

Edgar Vargas felt at times that he had spent most of his life searching for something he did not know the shape of. Under the glow of the chapel where he spent most of his Sundays from age four to age eleven, he folded his fingers and tuned out the liturgy, hunting through the blue and gold of the stained glass for the thousandth time. Each time, the parables failed to bring him any closer to a solution.

When he was twelve, at a sleepover hosted by a boy he did not like very much, Edgar thought perhaps the problem had something to do with the magazine that only he, out of all of them, had no interest in.

When he was sixteen, standing awkwardly at the poolside while his girlfriend whooped and dunked her friend under the water, Edgar Vargas thought perhaps, instead, it had to do with the fact that other people had no interest in _him_.

When he was eighteen, signing the papers that his father could not and would not sign, Edgar Vargas thought that perhaps it had nothing to do with any of that—perhaps it was only that everyone spends their lives searching for the answer to a question they no longer remember asking.

 

 

In his parking space below the apartment on the second floor which he rented for more than he privately thought it was worth, Edgar considered the red glow of the brake lights on the asphalt for a moment before unloading his miserable human cargo as gently as he could.

With his fingers pressed to the bare ribs of the boy’s sides, Edgar levered them slowly up the stairs, one gasping step at a time. It was a terrible time to think it, when the very person he was holding was so miserable and disoriented that he could barely walk a straight line, but there was something pathetically erotic about the movement of soft cotton over delicate ribs, something that made Edgar fizzle with directionless arousal. Gritting his teeth, he snapped a mental rubber band until the troublesome parts of his limbic system quieted the fuck down.

He had done this often enough that it was more ritual than anything else, a perfunctory exercise in self-punishment. All human contact, rare as it was since his parents’ deaths, made his heart beat fast.

They tripped through the door, Jimmy muzzily squinting through the doorway as Edgar popped it open with his hip. He left Jimmy leaned up against the wall, clutching the plaster like it was about to fly out from under him, and dialed Information while he kept an eye on the young man’s relative balance from the kitchen counter. Information directed him to the Euridge home line. On the fifth ring, a man with a thickly sleepy voice picked up.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hello,” Edgar said, and then hesitated, a hand over the mouth of the receiver, worrying. Now that he was here, he was uncertain whether he was doing the right thing. Suppose this Jimmy person lived alone, had moved out?

“Well?” the man said, his voice sharpening with annoyance.

“Sorry.” Edgar shook off his uncertainty. “Are you Jimmy Euridge’s father, by any chance?”

There was a hard breath. “Have you seen him?”

“Well yes, as a matter of fact,” Edgar said. “I’m looking at him right now.”

The man swore under his breath. “Do I need to get my lawyer?”

“What?” Edgar glanced down at the receiver, unsettled. “No. He just—” what to say what to say, “—he had some trouble with his car at the gas station, and I offered to let him stay with me for the night. I don’t think he’s well. Would you like to speak with him?”

“ _No_ ,” the man said. “Where are you. I’ll come pick him up in the morning.”

“Oh,” Edgar said, with a heavy sinking sensation. He had a bad feeling that something here was amiss, but no way of ascertaining what it might be. He rattled off his address to the man on the line, who asked him for a brief series of directions. When he was done with those, the man on the line sighed irritably.

“Don’t let him slip you,” he said. “I’ll be as early as I can.”

Edgar frowned, uneasily. “Um—“ he said.

In the living room, Jimmy gave a queasy little shudder. Very, very slowly, he started to topple over.

“Oh fuck,” Edgar said, and hung up the phone. He managed to drag the trash can across the room just in time for Jimmy to empty the last of his illicit alcohol into it. While Edgar stood there, rubbing small circles in the boy’s back, he wondered when the last time it was that this kid ate any solid food.

“This your place?” Jimmy said, when he’d finally finished panting into his elbow. As miserable as he sounded, there was clarity to his speech that hadn’t been there an hour ago.

Edgar helped him up from the floor, hooking an arm under his arm. “Mhm,” Edgar said. “Welcome to the Casa de Vargas, five star resort and spa.”

Jimmy made a winded little noise, like a laugh deflated by nausea. “God,” he said, “if you’ll give me a massage before you fuck me I won’t even call the cops. My neck is _killing_ me.”

All at once, every inch of flesh under Edgar’s fingers itched him like the prick of countless needles. Stiffly, no longer willing to lean into the contact even where necessary, Edgar laid Jimmy down on the couch.

“It’s not anything like that,” he said, catching Jimmy’s arm as the boy winced and flinched against the press of the cushions. He supported the uneasy weight, forearm shaking slightly, while Jimmy shifted onto his stomach. “I can see why you might get the wrong idea, but I promise you, it’s nothing like that.”

Jimmy glared up at him, his cheek smooshed into the cushion. “Yeah, you just picked up the drunk kid at the gas station and brought him back to your house ‘cause you felt like adding some lightly digested vodka to your décor. Come on buddy. I’m not _that_ dumb.”

Edgar drew back, fingers curling against his chest. “You’re in no condition to be driving yourself, and I have nowhere else to take you. Would you prefer I dropped you off at the hospital?” He meant it to be sarcastic, but even as the words left his mouth, he could feel his attention narrowing. “Come to think of it,” he said, “maybe I should have. Whatever’s wrong with your back certainly seems dire.”

Jimmy blew out a hard breath, rolling his eyes. “I know how to patch my own damn knife wounds.”

“Knife wound,” Edgar said, immediately horrified.

“Mmnnph,” Jimmy said, burying his face in the cushion. So muffled that it was barely comprehensible, he said, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“What,” Edgar said, “like someone who is concerned about a _knife wound?”_

“Fuck off,” Jimmy said, “it’s fine, I’m used to it. This one’s just—not healing as fast as—”

Edgar’s sleeves were already rolled up. “Okay,” he said, “I’m taking a look at this.”

In spite of all Jimmy’s yowling and wriggling, Edgar managed to get the shirt rucked up under his armpits, revealing a poorly-gauzed wound between the shoulder blades, shallow and crusted and inflamed from end to end. For a moment, he was struck by another dizzying wave of déjà-vu—the translucent paleness of Jimmy’s skin, the hot pink inflammation, the surge of almost _proprietary_ concern—all of it flashed through him with the destructive force of a tornado. And then he noticed the dark stain in the gauze.

“Judas fucking Christ,” he swore, “when was the last time you changed this thing?”

“It’s hard to _get_ to,” Jimmy whined, thumping his fist against his head.

“Ask someone to help you!”

“I’ve been on the road for days!” Jimmy said, “Who the fuck am I gonna ask, the toll booth guy?”

“Hold on,” Edgar said, “I’m getting the first aid kit. I’m going to pop this open and douse it with anti-septic, Jesus Mary and Joseph.”

His first aid kit was actually just a basket of bottles and boxes under the bathroom sink, which he wrenched free and pawed through until he found the isopropyl alcohol (the bactine was out again—why was he always out of bactine?). Kicking the cabinet closed behind him, Edgar came back out into the living room with his arms fully laden.

“This looks like it should have had stitches or something,” he said, as he dragged the coffee table close enough to sit on and poured his supplies out on it. “Did you even go to the hospital?”

“If I say yes,” Jimmy mumbled, “will you stop asking me about it?”

“No,” Edgar replied shortly.

Jimmy groaned into the cushions. Edgar took this opportunity to peel the tape off and discard it, at which point he had to hesitate. His hand hovered over the wound, brown over pink.

“Look,” he said, “this is going to hurt a little bit. If you’re still feeling nauseous, I can wait until morning.”

Jimmy made a series of irritable sounds which conveyed his preference to be done with it now, if it was all the same to Edgar. As Edgar went about his work, the boy folded his arms under his cheek and seemed at last to run out of animation. He really was a strange animal, his cheek shot with the dark flare up of chronic acne, his nose flecked with dark freckles, lavender veins fluttering under the delicate skin of his eyelid. For a moment, Edgar felt an irrational compulsion to touch them gently with his fingertips, smooth their angry pulse.

Instead, he dumped a spoonful of alcohol into Jimmy’s open wound.

Jimmy flinched, his arms tensing. “Fuck _me_ ,” he groaned, more tired than irritated.

Edgar tipped the mouth of the antiseptic against a cotton ball and said, “So what where are you headed, road warrior?”

 Jimmy snorted faintly. “Just a little further into the city. I got a guy lined up to let me crash on his couch for a couple days.”

“And then?” Edgar asked.

“Dunno. Hang around the city for a while. Been here before and it seems like the kinda place you could get lost in. I wanna be lost for a while.”

The cotton ball was cold in Edgar’s stilled hand. “Is that so?” he said.

Jimmy hummed vaguely. “Anywhere but there,” he said, as soft as a passing thought. “I’ll go—anywhere—disappear—”

Slowly, Edgar pressed the swab to Jimmy’s skin, watching the ripple of muscles flinch away from the burning cold as he passed it across the flesh. The tips of his fingers felt the chill seeping through, but not the menthol burning that he remembered from a hundred little injuries over a lifetime.

“Maybe you’ve picked the right place,” he murmured. “Sometimes I feel that I disappeared into this city a long time ago.”

“How could a guy like you disappear anywhere?” Jimmy said, his eyes falling closed. “You’re—big—”

“Big,” Edgar echoed, a little amused despite himself.

“You take up—” Jimmy made a soft little noise of irritation. “You’re on full screen.”

Edgar said nothing to this, disconcerted by the fact that it sounded so much like his own passing observation. Wide screen to full screen; a moment of almost dizzying shift, the peripheral folding back to reveal a new kind of vision.

“When you were lookin’ at me, at the… place… like a spotlight came on… like you knew me…”

Edgar frowned, gently swabbing away a knot of old blood.

“…Not a lotta people look at me like that,” Jimmy said, at last. Although his eyes were closed, his dark eyebrows were furrowing. “Maybe I already disappeared. Maybe she ate me a long time ago.”

“Hey,” Edgar said, trying out a smile, “you’re still here, I can see you just fine.”

Jimmy made an indistinct noise.

“Don’t fall asleep just yet,” Edgar said, tapping the small of his back. “I’m not convinced you’re okay yet. Tell me something.”

“Like what?” Jimmy mumbled.

“Like,” Edgar said, “what do you like to do? Are you still in school? It’s summertime, what have you been doing?”

Jimmy cracked an eyelid. “Last week I got thrown out of a biker bar in Sacramento because I told this butch motherfucker his daddy sucked my dick in a Kroger’s parking lot.”

Edgar choked, laughter and horror strangling each other into a single terrible death noise. He clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Also I had a shitty fake ID,” Jimmy added, cracking a sly grin when Edgar’s laughter only doubled. “The bouncer was like, Mr. Bartholomew, if that _is_ your real name—”

Edgar tried to disguise his amusement by turning and pitching the cotton swab into the trash. He doubted he was successful. When he turned back, Jimmy was watching him with his eyelid tilted up in satisfaction.

“You’re pretty tasty when you smile,” he said, letting it fall closed again. “You sure you don’t wanna bite of this? I done worse for a solid night’s sleep.”

Edgar’s stomach twisted. “What makes you think I’m even interested in that?”

“Guys who ain’t interested don’t usually fuck around with rhetorical questions,” Jimmy said. “So what’s your deal? You like ‘em younger? Older?”

“I don’t,” Edgar said, stumbling uncomfortably over the question. “I don’t like—frankly, it’s none of your business _what_ I like.”

“Nnnmph,” Jimmy said. “It’s because I threw up, isn’t it. You were game until I blew it on your shoes.”

“It certainly doesn’t help your case,” Edgar said. With a deliberate care, he cut and packed new gauze into the wound, filling the room with the soft _tock_ of the scissors. “I don’t know why you’re taking it so personally. You’d be much too sick to enjoy it even if someone _did_ want to sleep with you tonight.”

“…Okay,” Jimmy said, drawing it out like he was only humoring Edgar. “Roll me over in the morning and I’ll show you how much of that Florence Nightingale dick I can really take.”

The flush of blood that surged through Edgar’s face and up into the tips of his ears made him feel like he’d knocked back a whole fifth of Jameson whiskey. “No,” he said, “thank… you….”

Jimmy looked him up and down, cocking an eyebrow skeptically.

Edgar shifted his attention, brushing scraps of gauze from his pants. “I’m making some rice,” he said, “I think it’ll settle your stomach.”

“You know what would _really_ settle my stomach,” Jimmy said, narrowing his eyes- “a throat full of—”

“Annnnd I’m up,” Edgar said, on his feet and already half way to the kitchen.

It was late, of course, but Edgar diligently fired up the stove and put on some plain rice. The little space filled with the iron smell of heating coils, the dusty scent of dry rice, as Edgar narrated his progress to the boy on the couch. He asked a question here or there—have you ever had this? Do you like that?—and Jimmy answered him mostly in lazy nonsense syllables.

“My father used to make chicken and rice with a whole skeleton,” Edgar said, “for the marrow, you know? There’s that movie, The Black Cauldron, where the legion of undead soldiers all climb out of the pot one by one—scared the living hell out of me—”

But by the time he had finished, when he came back out into the living room carrying the mug heaped with rice, he found Jimmy fast asleep in a sprawl across the upholstery. For a moment he stood there, mug suspended from his knuckles, overwhelmed with another incomprehensible feeling. Bitter sweet—rain water and the scent of gardenias, a bone-deep longing for a home that no longer existed. He swallowed thickly.

The mug went down on the coffee table, with a square of plastic wrap to cover the top. It wouldn’t be as good cold, but it was safe enough to leave out for a bit.

 

 

The first thing Edgar was aware of was the heavy sound of someone knocking hard against his front door. He startled up from his dead sleep, fingers scrambling for his glasses, and pulled on a robe before he was fully aware of what he was doing. His bedroom door swung open to reveal one of his mother’s silver letter openers glinting in the hand of the boy from last night.

They stared at each other. Open in his other hand was one of Edgar’s old backpacks, the shiny curve of an orange peaking through the tattered zipper.

The knock came again. “Hello!” said a man’s voice, recently familiar. Jimmy jumped like he’d been electrocuted, terror flashing across his face as he turned back to the door.

“Just—just a minute!” Edgar shouted, stomach and throat twisting into an anxious knot. Maybe that was just the look of someone who thought they might be in trouble, but somehow, Edgar thought that no parent’s voice should ever make a person look that truly frightened.

Jimmy whirled on him. “You called them?” he said, his expression going chill.

“I thought you were—” Edgar tried, pulling his robe tighter around his chest. “It seemed like… the right…”

Jimmy visibly grit his teeth. He threw the letter opener aside and stalked into the kitchen, fingers scrambling at the window to see how far it would open. The answer was “very little”. It was an old apartment, most of the original features hardly worked at all.

“You can’t go that way,” Edgar said. He winced at the look that Jimmy shot back at him. “Couldn’t you just… go to the door, long enough to let him know you’re alive?”

Jimmy slammed the window shut and shoved past him, looking for another route.

“You’re a runaway aren’t you?” Edgar said, lingering behind him as he rattled at the frame of the living room window next. “Don’t you think he’s probably—probably worried about you?”

“Don’t care,” Jimmy said shortly, and then let out a noise like an enraged kettle as the knob on the winch snapped off in his hand. “Fuck! Isn’t there any way out of this shit hole?”

“Just the front door,” Edgar said, helplessly.

Jimmy slammed his palm against the glass, panting hard. His forehead hit the frame and hung there. “Fine,” he said. “Fine. I guess that’s it. Shoulda known it couldn’t last.”

Edgar watched him slump, heavy and dark against the white paint, and felt the knot in his stomach twist almost unbearably. He was lost, uncertain of what to do with the tangle of misery in front of him, not sure whether this was a moment of darkness before a dawn or the gaping abyss before a long fall. How could he know? As Jimmy started to pull back, setting his shoulder and turning to the door, Edgar was fixed with panic.

“Wait,” Edgar said, reaching out for him. He caught Jimmy’s wrist in his hand, the fist suspended between them as Jimmy froze. “Wait,” he said again.

He went to the kitchen drawer and ripped a sheet out of the yellow pages, uncapping a spare pen with his teeth. Across the margin, he scribbled his number. When he turned back to Jimmy, the boy was watching him with wary eyes.

“Here,” he said, offering the folded paper.

Jimmy looked at the scrap of yellow as if it might sting him.

Edgar stepped forward, taking Jimmy’s hand and gently folding the number into it. He closed his fingers around the boney fist. “Call me,” he said, “if you get back there and you still want out. I’ll come pick you up. I don’t care what time it is, I don’t care how short notice. I’ll come get you.”

A muscle in Jimmy’s jaw twitched.

“I’m serious,” Edgar said. “If you need out, we’ll get you out. But you’re only seventeen, you’re too young to be living the way you’re living—you could have died last night, and who would have known?” He tightened his grip, trying to will warmth into the cool flesh. “Let me help,” he said. “You don’t have to do this all on your own.”

When he let go, Jimmy’s hand hovered for a moment, and then slowly retreated to his pocket. The look on his face was almost distress, a hard downward press of the brows, the painful pull of his downturned lips. And then all at once it was gone, replaced by a sardonic casual nothing, his eyes flicking away to their next target.

“This ain’t usually how I get guys’ numbers,” he said.

Edgar smiled tentatively. “First time for everything?”

Jimmy glanced back at him, and in the space of another heartbeat, there was a careful consideration in his gaze that made Edgar feel lit up as if beneath a display case. He patted his pocket and turned away. “Yeah,” he said. “First time for everything.”

Edgar watched as Jimmy opened up the front door and disappeared into the daylight, a dark figure against the grey morning. When he calls me, Edgar thought, I’ll be ready.

But Jimmy never did call, and the week drained into another, and then the Academy called him to say that the paperwork was ready to sign, and would he please have a curriculum ready to go for an intro to psychology course by this time next week, please?

 

 

Edgar had seen a lot of things while he worked in the mental hospital. He had seen a lot of people who were angry and ready to hurt somebody else for little provocation, and unfortunately that was only touching on the orderlies. He was absolutely certain that this was _not_ how things should be—this couldn’t be how things were _everywhere_ , could it?—but still, it was what it was. He’d gotten out as soon as he had his degree, throwing himself desperately at any and all remotely related job openings he could turn up.

The school was different, but, in the worst way, eerily similar at times. Sterile, tense, a muddy boredom caught between outbursts of frustration. That was why, when Edgar came around the corner to find the fist clutching the mouth-guard of a football helmet rearing back, reading to swing its hard weight down on the face of Joe Manuel, he did not stop to question it.

Edgar dove.

He hit the body of the aggressor around the chest, knocking them both down onto the ground in a tumble. His head cracked against a collarbone—his knuckles under their skull throbbed in the vise of bone and linoleum—a heavy groan—

He lifted up as much as he could, hand still pinned under the skull, and looked down into the stunned grey stare of a face he could not ever forget.

There was a commotion as one of the other teachers trotted around the corner, speaking sharply into a walkie-talkie, following on the heels of a janitor who made short work of scruffing Manuel and his friend. And in the midst of all this, Edgar blinked down at Jimmy Euridge, who was every bit as ferocious and fragile as Edgar had ever remembered him. The boy licked his lip.

“Well,” he said. “What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”

 

 

The Academy of Science—a charter school—prided itself on its nonstop preparatory rigor. There were eight class periods in a day, broken by an hour long lunch. It did not have a theater department. It did not have an art department. It had exactly one musical course, which was orchestral band, and in the evenings a private piano tutor was known to hold court for the few students who could spare an hour from their studies in order to hone a classical skill. What it did have, however, was a football team. The team wasn’t a particularly strong competitor in the region. From what Edgar had been able to gather, over the last year, mostly it was the domain of boys whose fathers thought that a bit of a concussion was a necessary pruning process for a respectable male youth. In the spring, they had tennis, but Edgar had not yet had any problem with tennis team members. With footballers, this was not the first problem Edgar had had.

“Can anybody tell me what the _problem_ here is?” Principal Roberts said, addressing the three sullen boys crammed into his office.

Leaning against the door frame, Edgar fixed his gaze on the back of Jimmy’s head. None of the boys said anything.

“Mr. Euridge, I do not need to remind you that this is your _second_ attempt at a senior year,” Roberts said, leaning forward in his chair. “And Preston, you’re on thin ice already after that stunt you pulled at the practice field—your coach has already made me _well_ aware—”

“Look,” Jimmy interrupted, “are you gonna expel me or not? Cause I got places to be.”

Roberts gave him a stormy scowl. “Frankly,” he said, “your father has paid us too _much_ money to expel you this early on in the semester. Personally I think you’re an ugly little waste of space who’d be better off flipping burgers, and if I could give you the kind of hiding I got when I was your age I’d have already done it. But since we live in the _ever_ tolerant nineties, I’m going to settle for making your life as unpleasant as I possibly can.”

Roberts snapped his fingers, pointing straight at Edgar. “You,” he said, “you get Euridge for the next two months, three days a week, after last period. You can work out your holy roller routine for the tent revival circuit.”

Edgar kept his face as neutral as he could manage. When Jimmy twisted in his seat to look him over, Edgar’s heart lurched.

“Now,” Roberts said, “you two—”

“It’s not fair!” Preston said all at once, nearly coming out of his seat. “We were just pushing him around a little bit! He didn’t need to get a bug up his ass about it!”

“You can’t talk that way about people’s parents,” Joe said, slumping into his crossed arms. “That shit’s foul play.”

Edgar and Jimmy exchanged a look, as Roberts tongue-lashed the two boys into sullen silence. Edgar raised a brow. Jimmy rolled his eyes. At the dismissal, as they all broke off to go their separate ways, Edgar hung back in the hallway. When Jimmy passed him by, he tilted his head and said, “So, whose daddy was it this time?”

And Jimmy paused, lips splitting over his teeth, and said, “Manuel.”

 

 

Monday arrived in a wash of nervous energy, three class periods and a planning period, and several scheduled meetings over the course of the day. Jimmy’s confidential file sat like a hot coal in Edgar’s desk, radiating heat even when he was not near it. There wasn’t a whole lot in there that Edgar couldn’t have already guessed. Two previous schools, first a private and then a public, one of which he had been quite literally expelled from and the other of which he had simply picked up in the middle of the spring semester and never finished, leaving an incomplete on his final record.

It looked to Edgar as if the Euridges had encountered substantial difficulty keeping their son in the school system, despite the fact that they were apparently well off. If Edgar had never interfered, he wondered if Jimmy would _ever_ have gone back home.

Ten minutes after end of day, Edgar was flipping through the file for the umpteenth time when the door to his office was kicked open. He jolted, papers flurrying out of his hands, as Jimmy ducked his head through.

“H-hello,” Edgar said, rushing to get the confidential bits back into the folder. “Jimmy, hi, you’re—on time?”

Jimmy pulled back the chair across the desk and plopped down into it, kicking up the heels of his boots onto the wood. “There’s nothing else to do in this fuckin' fishbowl,” he said. “At this point I’d snort comet if I thought it would be slightly more interesting than going back to that dorm.”

“Okay, boots off the table,” Edgar said leaning forward to push the sole with one finger. “That’s where I keep my papers, I don’t need your tread marks all over them.”

Jimmy allowed himself to be pushed off the tabletop. Instead he scooted forward, hooking an elbow over the edge of the desk. “So,” he said, with narrowing eyes, “ _Mr. Vargas._ This is where they dock you when you’re not out trolling for boys to bring home.”

Edgar hid his face in his palm, rubbing at his forehead. “Please don’t say it like that,” he said.

“How you want me to say it?” Jimmy said, his eyes glittering with cruel mischief. “Picking up drunken strangers? Grown-up slumber party?”

“This,” Edgar said, “is not about that. This is about why you were trying to brain our quarterback with his own helmet.”

“Guys like him shouldn’t dish it out if they can’t take it too.”

“But _you_ shouldn’t escalate conflict just for the sake of escalating conflict,” Edgar pointed out. He tapped the desk with one fingertip. “You’ll take a hit someday that you can’t get up from.”

“You knocked me down pretty good yourself,” Jimmy said, settling his cheek in his fist. “Not many people can do that and get away in one piece.”

“Well,” Edgar said, casting about for an appropriate response to that loaded comment, “I’m sure you respect the severity of—of engaging a faculty member in—”

“Nah,” Jimmy said, “it’s because you’re cute. I got a pretty good look at what you’re packing that morning, I could go for a scoop of _that_ after dinner.”

Edgar opened his mouth, but nothing came out save for a trickle of choked air.

“I was tryin’a cop a feel when you were on top of me,” Jimmy said, leaning in, “but I guess you tuck left, no luck.”

“That is—” Edgar stammered, “I am a—I am _your_ —this whole conversation is _deeply_ inappropriate.”

“Man, who gives a shit, I’ll be out of here as soon as my old man runs out of money to bribe this place,” Jimmy said, eyeing the ceiling and all the rest.

“Why, um,” Edgar cleared his throat, “incidentally, why _are_ you here? We’re quite a drive away from where you lived, last I checked.”

Jimmy’s lip curled, his flirtatious eagerness collapsing into annoyance. “Well first I was on lockdown 24/7 no thanks to _your_ nosey ass, but then like, you know, you spend a couple afternoons screaming through the door every time anyone in the house makes a move and suddenly you’re ‘ _being an ungrateful brat’_ and _‘somehow when you’re home I’d rather be sleeping at the_ _office’_. So I guess Dad likes the idea of me being home more than me actually being at home.”

He reached across the table, rolling a crystal paperweight shaped like an apple into his hand. “Stepmom was pushing for military school, like _always_ ,” he added. “If she’s not the one making me miserable she’s gotta be sure _somebody_ is doing it.”

“But I see you’re not, in fact, in military school.”

Jimmy tipped the apple on its side with one finger. “Dad’s got a thing against the army, I dunno. He just starts yammering about Vietnam whenever somebody brings it up. So here I am instead, at the school with the highest suicide rate in the state.”

Edgar frowned. “You heard about that.”

“Stepmom told me,” Jimmy said, nose wrinkling.

“Well,” Edgar said, carefully, “I’m doing… what I can to alleviate that statistic.”

Jimmy looked up. “Yeah?” he said. “Good fucking luck, this place already makes me wanna blow my brains out and I’ve only been here for a week.”

“Do you have a history of those kinds of thoughts?” Edgar asked. He tapped the last of the confidential papers back into the folder and stowed it in his desk for later. Jimmy watched his hands with a vague sort of fascination that broke suddenly when he realized what he'd been asked. He squinted at Edgar.

“What kinda question is that?” Jimmy said. “You’re not really gonna act like my _therapist_ are you?”

“That is kind of my job,” Edgar pointed out.

“Fuck _that_ shit,” Jimmy said, pulling back. “This is glorified detention; I don’t have to put up with getting my head shrunk on top of that.”

“Okay well,” Edgar said, sliding his notebook away across the table, “right now I have you down as a semi-suicidal self-destructive with daddy issues so—I guess if you’re fine with that, you can just go for the afternoon?”

“You have me down as a _what?_ ” Jimmy said.

“I mean,” Edgar said, “I thought I’d give you a chance to convince me otherwise, but you don’t have to stick around if you have other places you need to be.”

“I don’t need to convince you of fuck all!” Jimmy said. “It’s none of your god damn business!”

Edgar shrugged, opening his hands in front of him. “Like I said,” he replied, “it’s my job.”

Jimmy lunged for Edgar's notebook, but Edgar only slid it out of his reach as he hit the top of the desk. “Rude,” he remarked.

Jimmy wriggled over the spread of papers. “Gimme that!” he said.

Edgar leaned back in his chair and lifted the notebook over his head. “What are you so worried about? I’ve seen much worse.”

“You’re gonna be sorry,” Jimmy said, getting a knee up on the desk at last.

Edgar rolled his eyes and flipped the notebook open above him, revealing a pristine, blank page. He allowed Jimmy to snatch it out of his grip, kneeling now on the desk as he flipped aggressively through the pages.

“I wasn’t being _literal,”_ Edgar said. “I’m not keeping secret records on you or anything. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

Jimmy paused, the book upside-down in his hands as he shook it out over his lap.

“Oh,” Edgar said. “You _are_ worried about that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry. Anything you say to me here in this office is strictly between us, you know?”

Deliberately, making unblinking eye contact, Jimmy closed the notebook and dropped it into the trash can beside the desk.

Edgar sighed. “Look,” he said, “I don’t need to be your therapist if you don’t want me to be. But you’re stuck with me for the next two months, so you might as well let me do _something_ for you.”

Jimmy gave Edgar a narrow once over. “You can let me get another look at that dick,” he said.

“Something besides that,” Edgar said.

Jimmy’s expression became sly. “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours,” he said.

“Okay, what part of _I work here_ is not getting through to you.”

“Mm—” Jimmy tilted his head, “—I got two months. I bet I can wear you down.”

“You can _try_ ,” Edgar said, exasperated.

“Oh, I’m gonna.”

They looked at each other for a moment. Edgar rested his forehead against his fingers.

“Please get down from my desk, Jimmy.”

Jimmy glanced down and then back up, with veiled amusement. “You’re gonna have to help me,” he said. “Unless you want me to get my nasty old boots all over your important papers.”

Edgar gave him a suspicious look, but conceded that in all likelihood _something_ was going to get crushed if Jimmy tried to go back the way he’d come. With a sigh, Edgar stood up and pushed his chair back, holding out his arms.

Visibly delighted, Jimmy leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Edgar’s neck. Edgar looked pointedly at the far ceiling, hooking his arms under Jimmy in a way that most likely would not pass the sexual harassment code of conduct if it ever came to light. In the bare moment before the lift, Jimmy’s breath was warm and light against his neck, the pressure of his chest against Edgar’s like a defibrillator ready to go off at any moment. And then Edgar pulled him up from the desk, swinging him down neatly onto the floor almost before he had a chance to jump at the sudden manhandling.

“Hgkk,” Jimmy said, clinging to Edgar for a moment longer than strictly necessary. Finally, his toes touched down on the carpet, and his weight shifted back underneath him.

“You’re pretty strong, huh?” he said, breathless and not quite disentangled.

Edgar risked a glance at him, and wished he had not. The flush in Jimmy’s pale cheeks was absolutely too apparent. He reached behind himself and peeled the hands from around his neck, gently but firmly.

“I volunteer at the food pantry,” he said, by way of excuse. “They have me lifting a lot of cans.”

Jimmy took his hands back reluctantly, looking Edgar up and down with a renewed vigor. “What the fuck,” he said. “What the _fuck_.”

And Edgar found this so amusing that it was not until much later, as he was unlocking his car in the parking lot, that he realized he had been engaged in a conversation about his sexuality with another queer person for the second time in his knowing life. The keys dropped out of his limp fingers and clattered onto the pavement.

 

 

During the year that Edgar had been working for the Academy, desperately trying to get their PR disaster of a student body back into some modicum of health, he had talked to quite a lot of people who just really—really—needed a break. There was a sense of isolation fostered by a setup like this: strictly patrolled dorm rooms, metric tons of homework, nowhere to go and nothing to do if you didn’t have a car, which perhaps two thirds of the student body did not. As a sort of inevitable side effect, the tiers of popularity in the academy were almost entirely controlled by who had access to what kind of car. Jimmy, Edgar was unsurprised to see, had none.

After seeing how Jimmy operated motor vehicles, to be quite frank, it was a relief.

Friday afternoon, Edgar was humming the theme to _Moonlighting_ when Jimmy burst in the door and fell into the seat across from him. He was in his uniform but only barely, his white t-shirt unbuttoned to reveal the tank beneath, and even as he kicked up his feet again he was unrolling and slipping on a black fishnet glove. "So how come you don't have one of those couch things?" he said, wiggling his newly clothed fingers.

Edgar pushed the boy's heels off the desk and shrugged. "Too Freudian. What we do here isn't worth much unless I can see you."

"Huh." Jimmy kicked back in his chair, managing to look quite at home in someone else's office. "I bet you prefer missionary."

Edgar almost responded with an _I'm not an evangelist_. Then he took a second look at Jimmy's shark-grinning teeth and narrowed his eyes. He felt his collar go hot, even as he turned back to the shelves he had been organizing with the full heat of Jimmy's glittering, mocking smile on his neck. "You're only interested in me because I said no, aren't you?"

"Cut me deep, teach," Jimmy said, fingers to his heart. "Don't you believe in love at first sight?"

"Do _you?"_

Jimmy burst out into a snort of laughter, shoulders shaking. "Holy shit no," he said. "You know what I believe in?"

"What do you believe in?"

Jimmy counted off fingers, one black nail at a time. "Cancer," he said, "cash, and cold hard karma."

One of the black legs of Jimmy's uniform pants was dusted with glittering grime from the parking lot asphalt. When he fell--if he did fall--his hip must have hit the ground first. Edgar eyed it as he said, "I believe in those things too."

 

 

Monday afternoon, they discussed Jimmy's parents. Or tried to, anyway.

"Dad? Yeah, he wasn't too happy when he picked me up."

Edgar had a cup of tea in his hands—more rum than tea, alright, but sweet nonetheless—and a notepad open at his elbow. In practice, he wrote very few notes during an interview, as it tended to stunt the natural flow of conversation and it made interaction feel artificial. Besides, it had been clear since the first day that Jimmy needed a very light touch, very informal. The boy was absolutely not going to let him get away with anything that whiffed even vaguely of therapy.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Edgar said.

"Yeah I bet you are," Jimmy said, cheek propped up on fist, eyes as sharp and narrow as chipped flint.

"I am, truly. I hoped you might turn a corner, being back at home."

"In what _universe_ ," Jimmy said. "Leaving that piranha pit was the best thing that ever happened to me, and you _ruined_ it."

Edgar set down his mug. "Do you have any idea what happens to kids like you, Jimmy Euridge? When the money runs out, when your car breaks down, when you get sick, or hurt, or targeted by someone who knows you won't be missed? The murder rate in this part of the state alone, for god's sake, I don't even want to think about it."

"You don't wanna think about it! Well I _have_ thought about it, and guess what? Everywhere is cold and ugly and dangerous, and you might as well die on your own terms, in the fucking _certainty_ that you chose it!"

He'd come up out of his chair, a hand slapped flat on the top of the desk, and when Edgar said nothing in response he seemed to falter, as if he was only just realizing where he was. Outside, the sky flashed dim and then bright as a cloud moved across the sky.

"Do you really feel that way?" Edgar said, softly. "That your home is just as dangerous as living in the streets?"

Jimmy changed the subject. "The hell is in your cup, Mr. Vargas?"

Edgar looked down. Edgar looked up. "… _Tea_."

"Yeah, if tea smelled anything like paint thinner, I'd believe you. Come on, you can tell me. What'm I gonna do, snitch?" 

Edgar placed his palm over the top of the mug, but he knew he was closing the barn door after the horses were already out. "I don't know what on earth gives you the impression that I trust you not to throw me under the bus at the first available opportunity. If anything, this sounds like the first overture of a very cruel plan to get out of detention at my expense."

"You think I'd just step on you like that," Jimmy said. "Like everybody else, huh?"

"Wouldn't you? You've got reason enough to hate me, by your own admission."

Jimmy sat back down in his chair, toying with the button on his open collar. His acne was flaring up again, streaking his cheek with angry red. The school wouldn't let him wear eyeliner during the day, but his lids looked sickly and thin without it. "I don't hate you," he said. "Much."

Edgar considered this. Maybe it was stupid, but part of him really, _terribly_ wanted to believe.

"It is tea," he muttered, "it's just not all tea."

"Ooh. Who's breaking the rules now, Mr. Ethical Code." Jimmy gave the mug a newly hungry look. "Gonna let me have some?"

Edgar raised a brow. "You are _definitely_ not legal."

"I'm legal in Mexico," Jimmy protested, making grabby motions.

"We aren't _in_ Mexico, are we?"

Fishnetted hands clasped in front of him, Jimmy affected a disturbingly angelic look. "Please, Mr. Vargas? I just turned eighteen. It'll be like a birthday present."

Edgar looked down at his drink. In actuality, his own father had given him wine for the first time when he was fifteen, claiming that it was a family custom—in retrospect, he thought it was just his dad trying to finish off the bottle, which had been bad and bitter. But, Edgar had turned out alright, more or less, and it was kind of hypocritical to take the high ground on this one.

"Fine," Edgar sighed, holding out his cup.

Jimmy snatched the thing up and drank it down without stopping. "This is awful," he said, between swallows.

Edgar half smiled at him, watching him go. "I know," he said.

Jimmy barely paused long enough to snort out a rum-flavored laugh. Well, obviously he wasn't new to the _aqua vida_ , if that was the speed he could drink at. Edgar put a finger on the rim and told Jimmy to slow down, at least _try_ to pace himself. Jimmy gave him a look but complied, after all, when Edgar showed no signs of demanding the thing back. Instead, Edgar got up and opened the office window, taking a deep breath of the late summer rain high above the city.

They stayed like that, silent, for a long time, staring out the window and into the gray afternoon.

 

 

Time passed in that way for days and then weeks, until Jimmy was as much a part of his life as the ironically named breakfast club that used his classroom as an afterschool assembly. The intro to psych class demanded nearly all of Edgar's time, on top of the necessary and essential conciliatory meetings, and between the papers and the tests and the demands of boring, normal life chores--corners that needed sweeping, groceries that needed buying--he felt more and more that this job was conspiring to wring every drop of blood out of him before he even finished his second year. But he always, _always_ , made time for the breakfast club, and for Jimmy. 

If there was one thing about Jimmy, it was that he loved to talk. Day by day, Edgar exchanged the memory of one life for another. There were stories of tea cups and fine china, of hungry times, of strange childhood games. When Jimmy was a small child his parents had been poor and angry. He didn't remember much of it. And then when he was a little older, his father had struck gold in business just in time for his mother to come down terribly, brutally sick. Jimmy was too young to be told the details, and after the funeral his father never spoke about it again.

"I think it was the way we were living before the money," he said, to Edgar, in the middle of recounting this. "Some kind of infection. She didn't want to go to the doctor, I remember that. They screamed about it a lot."

There were memories of bad times, more bad times than good times. Casual cruelty, little moments. When he would say something that made his voice twist with expired rage, he'd look up and search Edgar for some sign of sympathy--for some kind of understanding--and then when he found it, he would pull back and laugh it off and plow through into the next topic, a safer one.

And in exchange for all of this, Edgar only had to bear the odd lingering touch, the coal-hot, half-mocking grin. 

 

 

Edgar always bought into the American dream.

He always wanted a house in the suburbs, a white picket fence, family dinners every night. He knew it would be tight sometimes, between his teacher’s salary and his future wife’s part time job, but they would love each other and they’d be happy and that was worth more than any mortgage. She’d be blond, a sensible dark blond, the kind of color you only have if you’ve never died your hair; she’d wear slacks and business skirts, and she’d know how to cook desserts because he knew how to cook dinners, and that would even things out.

They’d meet at a parade.

They’d meet at a coffee house.

They’d meet on the street, bumping into each other and the fireworks would shoot off and they’d just  _know_.

But so far, nothing was going his way. It was all a string of awkward month-long attempts, sinking hopes, failed coffee dates, until the disappointing reality set in. There were no sparks, there was no sense of easy companionship, and even though he didn’t really believe in love at first sight he thought you ought to at least feel  _something._  Excitement, vague approval even.

Even after it became clear that he would not and could not ever live that kind of life, not in any honest kind of way, he still kept an eye on the better neighborhoods, driving through them on detours late in the afternoon, admiring cottages and sensible brick homes and imagining  _what would it be like to live here? To raise a family here?_

Edgar wanted perfect mornings with mugs of tea on the kitchen table, pancakes when there was time and bagels when there wasn’t, he wanted crayon drawings on the fridge and early morning Easter services, he wanted…

He wanted what he’d lost at eleven when his mother came home from the hospital with a half a bouquet of get-well flowers and a paste-on smile.

 

 

"You know what I do believe in? Respect," Jimmy said, on a Friday in September, near the middle of their sentence. "You earn respect. Master of your craft, whatever, you earn that."  

They were down in the green, where each day the lunch period bloomed its strange crop of mushroom circles as students who didn't care much for the cafeteria noise spread down their things and ate on the grass. At this time of day, there was no one but the two of them.

"All these old people want you to respect them 'cause they wear a badge or they got a Mr. in front of their name or something, but that's bullshit, right? They're nothing but a bunch of mediocre pigs, content to wallow in their own mediocre shit. I want more than that. Find me a Michelangelo, find me a Da Vinci! I'm gonna be the guy that surpasses the masters!"

His arm was over the back of the bench, resting against Edgar's shoulders, but he seemed to have forgotten about it. Jimmy was familiar without trying, tactile without meaning it. Which didn't mean it couldn't segue into flirting at any moment.

"If you've got any kind of aptitude for art, that's news to me," Edgar said.

"Well I'm not _strictly_ speaking an artist," Jimmy hedged, "but I've got artistic sensibilities! I know the difference between a rock and a diamond."

"Jimmy, a diamond is, by definition, a rock."

Edgar glanced back at the arm still resting inches behind his shoulders, considering that he could actually move it himself before somebody showed up to notice it. Except, you know, he didn’t really want to. It was nice out and he could feel the sun sinking into the black folds of his jacket, could hear wind driving through the trees behind him, could see every shade of yellow and green in the grass spreading out in front of him. And he didn’t really feel like pushing Jimmy off the bench just now.

Jimmy gave him a suddenly serious look, brows furrowed. “Edgar,  _mi corazón_ , what d'you want outta life anyways?”

Looking askance at his student, Edgar asked, “And are you the councilor today?”

“Maybe. Why not? You spend all day telling people what their damage is, but I'm not convinced you've got the first idea what you're about. Humor me.”

The sun was golden and the sky was blue, and Edgar was suddenly very uncomfortable. Rule number one of being a Vargas was not examining your own problems too closely.

“I want what most people want, I guess,” Edgar shrugged. “A happily ever after, a family, somebody to love… you know, that stuff.”

Jimmy stuck out his tongue. "Va-nill- _a._ "

"Well what _should_ I want," Edgar retorted, "if that's too vanilla for you?"

Jimmy screwed up his ungraceful features, removing his arm all at once from its warm place against Edgar's back. "You should be trying to make yourself stronger," he said, "so you don't need anyone. Cut the soft places out of you and get hard. Be the thing that doesn't hurt."

The warm retreat of September flowed around him. When he hunched forward over his knees, sunlight illuminated the outline of the tank under his white uniform shirt, and the barely-there shadows along the knots of his spine.

"Give up on happily ever after," he said. "Get revenge. Come unhinged. That's what _I'm_ about."

Half intending to comfort, Edgar's hand hovered in the space between them, his fingers curling down uncertainly as Jimmy got up suddenly from the bench. Underneath the cooling flare of his acne, pale freckles dotted Jimmy's cheek and nose like daytime stars.

"Jimmy..."

He grabbed his bag, pulling away from this moment and from Edgar, whose useless hand still hung in the air like an unfinished sentence.

"Time's up," he said. "Better get rolling."

"Um," Edgar said. "Sure."

He did not point out that for weeks they had not watched the clock at all, and that in fact their session had been over for half an unremarked upon hour. It was a delicate fact that would dissolve under the pressure of daylight, if it hadn't already. His heart gave a terrible dark twist. Jimmy took the steps down to the parking lot two at a time, and did not look back.

 

 

The dorms were situated at the bottom of the campus, below the parking lot, which was empty on a Saturday morning except for the odd residential student who was both old enough and lucky enough to have their own ride. Edgar sailed through it in his lumbering Volvo, pulling up to the roundabout where Damon Jones was waiting as per usual. But at his back, perched on the brick wall, was the unexpected addition of Jimmy Euridge. Damon's shoulders were set in a wary tension, as Jimmy leaned in towards him, smiling an unpleasant smile. Edgar rolled down his window when he came to a stop, stumped by the combination of people he had never expected to see in one place.

" _Ed_ gar," Jimmy called out, sweetly, while at his knee Damon grit his teeth. "What a surprise!"

Edgar gave Damon a confused look, which the boy answered by making a smart dash for the car. "Everything alright?" he asked, as Damon swung into the passenger seat and slammed the door behind him.

"Aww," Jimmy called, leaping down from the wall and making his easy way down the walk. "Leaving so soon? But we were just getting to _know_ each other."

Edgar glanced between them, uncertainly. "I'm just taking Damon to lunch," he said. "We do it-"

"Every week," Jimmy cut in, "yeah, I know." And then more sweetly again, settling the bow of his arm on the roof above the passenger door, he said, "Damon told me."

"Well," Edgar said, "great. I guess. We had better... go?"

"Say," Jimmy said, "you wouldn't mind another passenger would you? My stop's anywhere near the mall, you can set me right down on the curb."

"Oh," Edgar said, but Jimmy was already grabbing for the handle, wriggling into the back seat. When the door slammed shut, Edgar gave up on trying to parse the moment and simply said, "Buckle in first."

The seatbelt made a soft zipping sound as Edgar pulled away, leaving the dorms behind. "I've taken it upon myself to make become a kind of mentor to the underclassmen," Jimmy said, "like our friend Damon here."

"You _just_ transferred here," Damon said, without looking away from the windshield. "And I'm a _junior."_

Jimmy sat forward, straining the seatbelt to throw an arm over the back of either seat. "I see why you like him so much," he said, to Edgar, like a conspirator. "He's so tightassed I think you'd have to work him open with a lever. Hey nerd, did you ever _have_ a childhood, or did you just come out of the womb with a protractor in your pocket?"

Edgar took a hand off the wheel and elbowed backwards, hitting Jimmy in the shoulder. "Why are you antagonizing my student, Jimmy?"

"Antagonistic? Me?" Jimmy sat back, with a sharp _zip_ from the struggling seatbelt. "What's antagonistic about trying to make friends? You're always telling me to be more social." In the mirror, Edgar could see him leaning towards Damon as he added, "He's always telling me that, can you believe it? Don't you think I'm social?"

"I think I've seen you drunk in the hallways more times than I've seen you have a conversation that didn't end with shouting," Damon replied.

"Oh _have you_ ," Edgar said, with a warning look at Jimmy's face in the mirror.

"Do you know what he did to Clarissa's room?" Damon said, warming to the topic with a vicious satisfaction. He turned his head sharply, just a fraction, enough to see Edgar and only Edgar. "This asshole took out all her CDs-"

The hand that clamped down on Damon's shoulder made him jump, as Jimmy pulled himself forward again. "Hey," Jimmy said, "how about you let me tell my own stories, huh?" 

Damon gave the hand on his shoulder a murderous glare. "Frankly I don't know why you even bothered coming back to school," he said, "if you were just going to cause trouble and cry in your room-"

"You have _not_ heard me-"

"I've seen you cry in the _bathroom_ you didn't even make it back to your-"

"Oh sure, laugh about it then, you and fucking every-"

"-make it _impossible_ to just be _nice_ to you-"

Edgar hit the brakes, throwing everyone forward in their seats. "Guys!" he shouted. Behind Damon's seat, Jimmy came up rubbing his forehead, having wiggled out from under fifty percent of his seatbelt earlier in the argument. "What the _hell_ is this conversation about?"

There was sullen silence for a long moment. Finally, Damon slumped down into his seat. "I'm just tired of him giving me grief about you," he said. "And _lying_ all the time."

There was a thump as Jimmy let his head fall against the window. "How would you know if I was lying," he said.

"Okay," Edgar said, and pulled the car off at the edge of a shopping center parking lot. "Damon, can you give us a second?"

The flash of triumph that came over Jimmy's face was only matched by the look of disapproval on Damon's. After a moment, he said, "Yeah, sure, Mr. Vargas. I'll just... be over at the thrift shop. Honk for me."

Edgar waited for Damon to close his door and take off down the sidewalk, hands in pockets, before he looked back to Jimmy. The younger man had an elbow over the back of the seat, and he pointed a sly finger at Edgar. "You know, if you're finally wising up to what a square that guy is," he said, "I know a couple things you and me could do here in town, just the two of us."

"Jimmy." Edgar cut off the engine with a little too much force. "I'm not saying this as your teacher, or your councilor, or anything like that. I'm saying this as your friend--because I _want_ to be your friend, and sometimes I think you even want me to be yours--but you need to back the hell off."

Jimmy screwed up his face. "What? Why?"

Edgar twisted fully in his seat. "Do you just want to fuck me?" he said. "Because if that's all you're holding out for, you don't have to be a dick to every person I like. It's not sexy, and it's not helping your case."

"Maybe I'm just a dick naturally!" Jimmy said, nails digging into the leather seat. "Maybe you're not even relevant to it!"

"Okay well, if _that's_ the case," Edgar said, "you should stop being a dick to Damon as of now, because he's got enough on his plate without you making him miserable too. I take him out to lunch like this because he's _drowning_ , he's _miserable_ , and I'm trying to lighten the load where I can. I would have expected you to god damn sympathize."

"He's not exactly a buddy pal to _me_ ," Jimmy said. "When Manuel knocks his fucking soda all over my lunch, he's laughing with the rest of them."

Edgar dug his thumb into his temple, trying to squeeze the stress out of it. "I'll talk to him about it," he promised. "I just think... you make enemies like it's your way of saying Hello, like you've got to make sure people hate you before they can decide to do it for themselves. If you want people to be nice to you, you shouldn't come at them with your claws out right off the bat."

"And that's worked so well for you," Jimmy snarled, "your sweet home prairie, kumbaya thing, how's that working out for you? Does it stop your shit ass boss from dumping all the work he doesn't like on your desk? Does it make people treat you _nice?"_

Edgar said nothing. He swallowed, hard, against a knot in his throat that he didn't understand.

Jimmy sat there, primed like he was waiting for the next blow, and when it didn't come, he started to look uneasy. He worked his fingers into the fishnet of his gloves, tugging hard at them.

"Just," Edgar said, once he had his throat back under control, "think about whether you're hurting the people you really want to hurt, or if you're just lashing out at anyone who isn't strong enough to get away. I've got a feeling you've been that person too."

The cooling metal of the Volvo hood gave a quiet _pop_. Jimmy reached up past him and pressed the horn with two black-painted fingertips, so that it let out a mournful beep. When his face passed Edgar's face, there was no brushing of skin. He did not look at Edgar, as he drew back.

"I can walk from here," he said. "You guys have fun. Eat a croissant for me, or something."

 

 

The details of that morning played again and again in agonizing slow detail--the glow of the orange in the bottom of the backpack, the look of fear on Jimmy's smeared and haggard face, the wicked tip of the letter opener that could have been meant for any number of terrible purposes, and perhaps was, and Edgar knows better than to expect that a feral boy off the streets would never hurt him but god he _wants_ to believe in that. The plastic resistance of the buttons on his landline, each of them square and clicking down with futile resistance. He was stealing from Edgar, and that doesn't hurt half as much as the alternative.

These were strange but good days, almost painfully sweet at times. Was all this easy companionship only a stopgap born of boredom, a paste-over, an illusion that Edgar was too naïve to distrust? 

Had he done something terrible? Was that why Jimmy never called him, although by his own account he'd been no less miserable having returned than he was before he left? There was something at the bottom of Jimmy's pitch black oubliette, something that Edgar's searching fingers had brushed in the darkness and shuddered to touch. Had he done something terrible? But why hadn't Jimmy called him?

The flashing tip of the letter opener, not sharp enough to slice but hard enough to wound. It certainly seemed that Jimmy had never wanted his help to start with.

September came, and September went.

 

 

The last day came with no fanfare, another noisy autumn afternoon on a Wednesday that was otherwise unmemorable. An awkward thickness hung in the air as Jimmy took his usual seat, dropping his bag in the corner.

"Well," Edgar said, "this is it..."

Jimmy looked up from the pen mark on his hand that he had been scratching at. "I guess," he said. The silence hung a moment more, before he shook it off and fixed on one of his sly smiles. "Last chance to ride this train, huh?"

"Actually," Edgar said, hanging on to his nerve with both hands, "I think maybe it shouldn't be."

Jimmy cocked his head, one eye narrowed in suspicion. "What do you mean by that."

"I've got a thing," Edgar said. "Kind of like a club. It meets after school on Thursdays, for a couple of hours."

"This place doesn't _have_ clubs."

Edgar scratched the back of his head, looking away. "It's not... _technically_ sanctioned," he said. "It's... _technically_ very much against school policy."

"Are you breaking rules, Mr. Vargas?" Jimmy said, with some amusement.

"You should come," Edgar plowed on, "it's not really about anything, it's just a place to decompress a little. It's fun. You need something to do that isn't just staring at the ceiling and hating people."

Jimmy made a face.

"Come on," Edgar wheedled, "you love doing illegal things. Just think about how much trouble I'd be in if the administration found out. I didn't even get parental consent forms."

"Pff, like I'd willingly spend time I don't gotta spend hanging around campus just so I can see more people who hate my guts." Jimmy turned his head, signaling an end to the conversation. "Pass."

Edgar bit his lip. "Well it's up to you," he said.

Jimmy glanced at him from the corner of his eye, arms crossed over his chest.

"But for what it's worth, I think you should come," Edgar said. "I'd like to keep seeing you."

 

 

"You _invited him?"_

It was three o'clock in Edgar's classroom as down below the last of the cars were clearing out of the parking lot, and Damon was among those to wander in, bookbag under his arm. They had been talking for several minutes, as the school emptied out and the classroom slowly filled up.

"Yes I _invited him,"_ Edgar said. "He's a student just like you, and he needs friends."

"What that sticky-fingered little asshole needs is a personality transplant," Damon said, as Clarissa Williams and her friend came chatting through the doorway and started to set their stuff down. Edgar stiffened. They could have this conversation in private, but they _could not_ have it in front of other students, especially those with whom it was well known that Jimmy already did not get along.

"That is rude and uncalled for," Edgar said, sharply.

"I'm just saying," Damon shot back, exasperation thick in his voice. "Find one person who doesn't agree with me. Just the way he _moves_ gives me the creeps, it's like he's about to skitter up the wall."

He took a seat in the chair opposite Edgar, tapping a binder with a nervous finger. Edgar had long ago learned to ignore those tics, always a part of the boy's demeanor—always moving, talking, thinking. No patience. That was alright, though, because Edgar usually had patience enough for them both.

Right now, though, he was at the edges of that patience. "I can't believe you'd talk that way about _anyone_ , let alone one of your classmates."

Damon stiffened, fingers stilling for a brief moment. "Okay, so. I'm sorry. That's the way everyone talks about him, I guess I'm just... hearing a lot of it. Sorry. But even you've got to admit, he's a real bitch."

"He's had a hard time," Edgar replied, turning back to his folders. "He's got a right not to trust people too easily. He can be strange, I'll admit. But he's not dangerous."

His hands passed over the smooth surface of a manila envelope, cool to the touch, and he hoped that he meant what he said.

The mean volume of the room climbed steadily as more of the usual crowd streamed in, mid-conversation, laughing and pulling out seats at random. When he'd come back for this second year, he'd half expected the club to boil away like so much stale tea, yesterday's phenomenon. Instead they'd nearly blown his door off its hinges the first day, eager to pick up where they left off, to find some place where they could bemoan the already cumbersome courseload in safety and in company.

More than a few of them waved brightly to him as they came in, before turning back to their conversations. When he'd first started this, there had only been enough of them for one small circle in front of his desk. Now there were enough that they broke off into cliques and sects, ever changing and adapting to the flow of arrivals. Edgar waved back, as Damon sighed and slumped across from him. 

"He won't come," Damon said. "You know that right?"

"He might," Edgar said.

"Edgar," Damon said. "I know you don't wanna hear this, but you're taking on _too much_. You can't save the Clarissas and the Jimmies of the world, you just _can't_. They're always gonna be what they're gonna be. Clarissa'll end up barefoot and pregnant with some second stringer from a state college, and Jimmy'll end up overdosed in a ditch if he doesn't blow this whole place up by summer."

"Damon," Edgar said, "don't _talk_ like that, Jesus."

Damon made a face and looked away, his frantic nail making a _zzt zzt_ sound against the edge of his binder. "Even if he shows up, what does that mean? You and me both know it won't be to make 'friends'. What does he get out of seeing you? What does he _want_ from you?"

Edgar, overwhelmed by the sudden sharp turn of the conversation, pulled back.

"The way he touches you when he thinks nobody is watching--" Damon sat forward, "--and you _let him_ , Edgar I know you and I know you don't know how to say no to people, I'm worried about you."

The totality of the first night, the car, the gasoline, the vomit--the call he made, that he regretted more and more every day, until it ate him at the corners--the long conversations and the bite of rum--all of it choking up in his throat and overcoming him, until all he could say was, "Wh, what do you mean?"

"You know you can tell me," Damon said, "don't you? If you like him so much because he's... like you, I mean, I guess I get that."

Anxiety and adrenaline made Edgar's vision swim, his pulse coming so hard in his throat that he was certain it would choke him. For a moment all he could think of was escape, and how to do it without drawing any attention to himself. The closed door to the classroom fuzzed in and out of his vision. But Damon was still watching him, uneasy, waiting--something almost hopeful in his expression.

Edgar swallowed. He opened his mouth. The door to the classroom crashed open and bounced off the wall, revealing Jimmy panting in the doorway. Conversation cut out in a startled swivel of heads turning.

"Hey," Jimmy said, his skinny chest heaving. "Is it a problem that Roberts is headed back up here, or should I just go fuck myself?"

Dozens of heads swiveled to look at Edgar, who took one look at Jimmy's blown breathing, made a calculation, and then said, "Scatter."

In the aftermath of the stampede, chairs wobbling down to settle on four legs and papers fluttering to the floor, Edgar and Damon exchanged a look. The student swung his backpack onto his shoulder with an apologetic shrug. "Better make myself scarce," he said, "just in case word gets around I was blowing off the _ninth_ PSAT prep book this fall. You, uh, you good man?"

He turned to look at Jimmy, who was still recovering from his helter skelter rush. "Fine," Jimmy wheezed.

Damon reached out and clapped a hand around Edgar's shoulder. "You're always listening to my problems," he said, "think about letting me listen to a couple of yours?"

He pulled away, before Edgar could even think of answering, and made his way to the door. As he passed Jimmy, he said, "That was pretty alright of you. Maybe you can make it to the next meet up."

Edgar watched him go with a dopey smile on his face that he didn't notice at all until Jimmy was poking it with his finger, nail pressing cheek. Edgar swatted him away.

"Lookin' pretty happy for a guy who nearly got his ass busted," Jimmy said, still a little short of breath.

"We have got to invest you in some cardio," Edgar replied, "you're way too out of breath for a couple flights of stairs."

"Okay well, next time you can save your own ass," Jimmy said, "if this is the thanks I get."

Edgar turned to him and took him gently by the arms, and hauled his whole panting, sweat-specked body into a tight hug. His palm settled on the valley between the shoulder blades, above the phantom presence of the scar that he once pulled open and cleaned out with his own hands. "Thank you," he said, pulling Jimmy's head into the crook of his neck with his other hand. "For looking out for me."

Jimmy froze underneath him. "Uh," he said. "Yeah, you know. Sure. Any time."

Edgar pulled back, holding him at arms length for a brief moment. His gaze flickered to the door. "Why don't we get out of here too," Edgar said. "The last thing I want to do is talk to Harry right now. I'll give you a ride into town, how about that?"

"Oh," Jimmy said, "hell yes."

 

 

Edgar walked Jimmy back to the dorms, hands in the pockets of his coat as Jimmy carried on doggedly ahead of him. "I just gotta change," Jimmy had said, tugging at the collar of his shirt with bald disgust. "If anyone cool sees me in this, I'll never live it down." But despite all the whining, in that moment Jimmy looked surprisingly at home in his uniform, the shirt unbuttoned over his undershirt, black pants tucked into a pair of boots that weren't so much in dress code as not _not_ in dress code. Maybe it was the way he kept turning to talk at Edgar, twisting to make eye contact wherever he could. He was animated with a light that Edgar hadn't often seen before.

 _I like you when you're alive,_ Edgar thought. A chill wind rustled the fingers of the palm tree they passed under. 

The dorms were situated at the bottom of campus, next to a thin area of woodland that was supposed to have been bought by a construction company which went under just after the purchase. It was an old brick building, with a tendency to mold in wetter years, and Jimmy's room was at the top, on the third floor. It was hard to believe anybody could like living here enough to pay for it, but then, when you're sixteen probably anything different than home sounds good.

"Hold on," Jimmy said, stopping at the doorstep. "Gotta grab my key."

Edgar blinked at him as he went trawling through the potted plants, poking at the dirt. "Um. What are you doing."

"I told you--" he wiggled down into the loose soil and came up with a small hooked, brass wire. "--gotta get my key."

He left Edgar on the doorstep, disconcerted, and trotted inside. The dorm, which Edgar had never considered he might need to enter, seemed to eye him judgmentally with its dozens of black paned windows. For fear of the alternative, Edgar dashed in after Jimmy.

"I thought they didn't have locks in here," Edgar said, catching up to Jimmy as he punched the button for the elevator. "You know... in case of... emergencies."

"Yeah, in case the RA gets an itch to see you in your underwear," Jimmy replied, which was a worrying thing to say in any case. "Nah, I've got my own system now. After the second time those football fuckers trashed my room, I got wise."

The elevator dinged open, and Edgar followed Jimmy into the small space, feeling all at once stifled in his long coat. "Didn't the RA do anything about it?" Edgar asked, somewhat at a loss.

Jimmy snorted. "Fuck the RA, I can handle my own shit."

As the elevator ground upward, Jimmy considered the buttons with more interest than they reasonably merited. The wrinkle in his forehead only seemed to get deeper. "You know," he said, "at first I thought this place was just another shitty development in my bullshit life, but the longer I'm here, the more I think they didn't know _what_ they were doing to me. I mean, a lock on the door? Two cities between me and her? _You?"_  

He left the elevator without looking back at Edgar, the strangely confident tread of his boots tapping against the shiny floor.

Edgar caught up to him as he was wiggling the hook into the doorknob, through a little hole in the metal that looked as if it had been drilled after the fact. Edgar boggled to imagine how Jimmy had managed to arrange that, without a car and under the surveillance of the school administration.  

"Hah!" Jimmy said, as the knob clicked open. He turned back to Edgar with a smug smile, hip cocked, and elbowed the door open. Edgar ducked past him, as he said, "Casa de Jimmy, five star resort and spa."

Edgar's lip twitched. The space was small, a bed and a desk and a closet, half-torn band posters sort of recklessly taped up. There were papers on the floor, and underneath them, empty plastic mini-bottles of liquor. In the cracked open drawer of the desk, something caught the light in a shape that caused Edgar to slam the drawer closed in a panic. When he looked up, Jimmy was grinning the most merciless grin he'd ever seen.

"Here at Casa de Jimmy, we specialize in _intimate_ relaxation," he said, coming across the floor to take Edgar's coat in his hands by the lapels.

Edgar craned his head back and gave the ceiling a good hard examination. "Please stop making this weird," he said. "It's weird enough that I'm up here at all."

Jimmy pressed in closer, crooked teeth bared in a leer that--even half seen--made Edgar's stomach twist with heat. "C'mon," Jimmy said, "take a load off."

"I thought you were getting changed," Edgar said.

Jimmy squinted at him for a moment, and then his grin slithered back on. "Oh yeah, sure," he said, "if that's what you're into."

Edgar sighed. He took hold of both Jimmy's hands and peeled them off, backing away until he could sink onto the hard plane of the dorm mattress. "Pick out an outfit," he said. "I said I'd take you into town, and I will. If it's better for me to wait in the hall-"

Jimmy snatched his hands back. The expression on his face was almost hurt, in the flash second before he turned back to the closet and started riffling through it with just a little too much force. Uncomfortable, Edgar leaned back on his palms and considered the poorly made bed. He'd disrupted the stack of pillows when he sat down, and now it sat like the sad remains of teetering Babel. He reached over and pulled one onto the other, and then, as he started to lift the stack into his lap, something underneath gave a soft papery crinkle.

Edgar's breath stopped in his chest.

When Jimmy turned back to him, bare skinned with a shirt in either hand, Edgar jumped so hard that he nearly came off the bed. Jimmy froze, with a black t-shirt held out toward Edgar, eyes flicking between the stack of overturned pillows and the scrap of yellow paper clutched in Edgar's fist. Across the margin, scrawled in smudged and faded pencil, the number for Edgar's home line.

"Why didn't you call me," Edgar breathed.

Jimmy dropped the clothes on the floor, forgotten, as he reached for Edgar's fist. But Edgar pulled it tight against his chest, terrified to lose whatever it was that the scrap of paper meant between them.

"Why didn't you _call_ me?"

"Because I didn't want to hear you not pick up!" Jimmy burst out, his skinny shoulders rigid. "Or worse, blow me off! Nobody's _ever_ tried to help me before, I wanted to believe that you meant it, even if it was stupid to, even if it was never gonna happen, I wanted that!"

"I would have picked up," Edgar said, softly. "I would have come for you."

"Oh, what," Jimmy said, arms cinching tightly over his chest. "Just drive up to my house, huh? Ring the doorbell? Excuse me, Mr. Jimmy's Dad, I'm here to kidnap your son? What about your _life,_ you expect me to believe you'd really just throw over your whole life for some street kid you wouldn't even _fuck?_ _"_

"Of course," Edgar said, his voice thick with confusion.

Jimmy retreated, stumbling on unseen trash beneath his heels.

"Do you think I could even get to a fucking telephone?" he said, almost laughing with rage. "Even if I could, and then you didn't pick up? If you didn't pick up and understand everything I had to tell you in the minute between Carmella hearing it and coming after me, what then?"

Edgar's heart beat hard under the pressure of his clenched knuckles. "Jimmy, I-"

"You fucked it up, you fucked it all up!" Jimmy shouted, "And you still--for a while I thought you _still_ might be the last good thing that would ever happen to me!"

And then he was lunging, with a force that knocked Edgar back onto the bed, his fingers clawing at Edgar's fist.  "And I couldn't," he snarled, "let her," prying Edgar's fingers apart, "take anything else!"

Belatedly, Edgar let his hand go limp. Jimmy snatched up the scrap and held it in his grip, heaving with exertion, the hand hovering like a fist just below his mouth.

"Jimmy," Edgar whispered, "I'm so sorry. I didn't realize."

Jimmy watched him, wild eyed, the same way that he had in that first office meeting, a wounded and feral thing. Gently, slowly, Edgar lifted his arm.

"I'm sorry," Edgar said. "You didn't deserve to be treated like that. You didn't deserve to be sent back to that."

Jimmy flinched back from the touch against his cheek, but when Edgar persisted in cupping his jaw, he didn't pull off. His face twisted in something like pain, against Edgar's gentle fingers.

"I wish I hadn't done it," Edgar was barely brave enough to admit. "I wish I had kept you instead."

"You can't change the past," Jimmy said, tightly.

"I know," Edgar said. "God, don't I know."

The sheets, rumpled and soft and smelling of sleep, shifted under Jimmy's hand. His skin was hot under Edgar's fingers, the bones of his jaw hard underneath. If there was anything left in him that hadn't been scooped out and scabbed over, Edgar would not rest until he had touched it.   

"What do you _want_ from me," Jimmy said, wretchedly, slumping over Edgar.

His pale skin and fragile bones were so worrying like this, all the scrappiness of tough living sloughed off with the rest of his clothing. "I want you," Edgar said, "to let me help you."

Jimmy scoffed, the effort straining his tired body. "I'm beyond help, _Mr._ Vargas. Ask anyone."

The pad of Edgar's thumb traced the lilac crescents under Jimmy's lids, mapping them. "It's never too late," he said. "Don't you know that?"

 

 

When Edgar Vargas is twenty-six years old, he allows a boy to kiss him in an alley way, in sight of a half dozen delinquent friends. He regrets it every moment that he isn't lost in the memory of it, fingers to his lips, burning like the coals at the bottom of a white fire.

 

 

When Edgar Vargas is twenty-six and twelve months old, he comes home to find Jimmy already in his apartment, with the radio playing _Queen_ as if there were nothing in the world but Freddy Mercury's chorus. He drops everything in his hands. A single round orange rolls from his shopping bag, across the scarred floor, and comes to rest at the foot of the boy who has brought him a single chocolate cupcake, the darkness bangled and broken by glowing Christmas lights. It is April first. He wipes water from his swimming eyes.

 

 

When Edgar Vargas is twenty-seven, he takes a picture. They are alone in the milling congratulatory chaos of graduation, Jimmy's obligatory cap marked up in protest with a white anarchy symbol that no one knew how to stop him from wearing, his boots showing under his much-loathed gown. Edgar pulls him up to the edge of the stage, turns on his old polaroid, and holds it up above them.

"I don't know how to aim this thing backwards," he says, squeezing Jimmy against him, "so if it turns out to be just a picture of your shoulder, please at least pretend to treasure it."

 

 

Edgar Vargas is twenty-seven and four months, awash in the sweltering dark joy of a street jazz festival, in the laughter and the clapping. In the grip of a happiness so overwhelming that it whites him out like the heat of a forge, Edgar takes Jimmy’s hands and spins him through the half remembered twirl of a ballroom dance. Jimmy stumbles but Edgar catches him at the last moment, tight against his chest. For a moment there is only the cry of the saxophone, as bright as a sun drenched funeral, as bitter as a long awaited homecoming. The expression on Jimmy’s face waivers and breaks into something that Edgar has never seen before. It is something like heartbreak—tender with longing, an old wound reopened. The August night falls away around them and all at once nothing terrifies Edgar as much as the thought that he must let go, if not now, then soon.  
  
“I’m outta ways to ask you,” Jimmy says, sounding as lost as he looks. "I know you want me. I _know_ you do."  
  
The streetlights are coming on.  
  
“I know you’re scared,” Jimmy says, “I don’t know what you’re scared of, but look, it’s gonna be alright. Don’t be scared.”  
  
His palms burn Edgar’s chest.  
  
“I’m gonna take care of you.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [It's not Thanksgiving if you didn't have a lot of feelings about the whole thing or burn the turkey or sleep on somebody's couch or something](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16662455) by [Chokopoppo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo)




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